


The Heir to Caerleon

by claritylore



Series: The Caerleon Series [2]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Bad Decisions, Collaboration, Crack Treated Seriously, Cute Kids, Feels, Hurt Ianto Jones, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, No really - angst, References to Drugs, Sad Ianto Jones, Sick Ianto Jones, Substance Abuse, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:22:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 37,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29354907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claritylore/pseuds/claritylore
Summary: The sequel toThe Journey to Caerleon.In the aftermath of Abaddon's defeat, Jack has no choice but to leave with the Doctor. Ianto struggles to cope after losing both Jack and his son, but he may not have lost quite as much as he thinks...
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones, Jack Harkness/Original Jack Harkness
Series: The Caerleon Series [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2140731
Comments: 7
Kudos: 65





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ARCHIVE NOTE: Once again, this fic is not wholly mine! It was written in collaboration with Mav (maverick0324) who I have subsequently lost touch with. Mav, if you're out there, hope you don't mind me posting this up again! 
> 
> This fic was originally written back in 2007 on LJ, now rescued and reposted here for safekeeping. 
> 
> As with the first part, I'll post one part a day of this (and its sequel) until all the parts are up. If you haven't already, please read [The Journey to Caerleon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29162526/chapters/71595675) first!

‘How long is he going to stay down there?’ Owen groaned.  
  
‘As long as he needs to,’ Toshiko breathed, almost reverently, wondering if she should turn the CCTV of the morgue off to give Ianto a little privacy. It didn’t seem right that they were watching him grieve.  
  
Gwen flexed her hands a few times and shuffled her feet, indecisively. In the end she couldn’t let it go. ‘I’m going down there.’  
  
Tosh moved to block her but didn’t make it in time. ‘Gwen, don’t!’ she called after her, but the lift doors were already closing.  
  
‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ Owen muttered, plopping himself down on the seat in front of the monitor. ‘He’s not coming back this time. They both need to fucking well accept it and move on.’  
  
After a moment or two, Ianto looked up as if startled and Gwen came into view on the monitor. Toshiko saw him cringe and sigh, not even making an attempt to hide the fact that she wasn’t wanted. Quickly, she reached over and turned off the monitor.  
  
‘Hey, Tosh...!’  
  
She gave him a stern look and he backed off. It wasn’t for them to intrude on Ianto’s private grief and, well, since she knew she was partly responsible for his pain, she was in no mood to potentially make it worse.  
  
*  
  
Ianto tried to ignore the soft sounds of Gwen's shoes coming closer, but even he was unable to disregard the only bit of noise in the otherwise soundless room.  
  
‘He's coming back, just you watch,’ Gwen attempted lightness in her voice and failed; Ianto couldn't even be bothered to feel a bit of irritation at that.  
  
‘I don't think so.’  
  
‘You haven't seen him come back as many times as I have. I know he can...’  
  
‘And you weren't the only one to ever see that little miracle,’ Ianto snapped, glaring at the hand Gwen had placed on his arm until it was removed. ‘And even if Jack does come back... _he_ won't,’ Ianto murmured cryptically, his hand gently brushing Jack's hair aside.  
  
‘I'm sorry?’  
  
‘Yes, you are,’ Ianto snapped, losing all patience. ‘Your lover is alive. I thank you for your bit of sympathy but please, leave me alone to grieve for him in peace.’  
  
Gwen blinked, letting one hand fix Jack's gown, straightening it, before she turned and left. Ianto waited until she was gone before restraightening it back out.  
  
‘I'm sorry, I know you think she'll lead us to be better humans and to use our hearts, but _she_ wasn't the one that taught me that.’ He sighed, deeply, like the weight of the world was upon him. ‘Not that I ever learned a thing. If I had, you wouldn’t be here. Neither of you.’  
  
Emotionally and physically exhausted, he slumped back against the line of morgue bay doors and slid down to the floor, burying his face in his hands. ‘How could you do this?’ he demanded. ‘How could you go off and sacrifice yourself, knowing...?’  
  
He stopped. That wasn’t fair, and Ianto knew it. For all he knew the baby had died when Owen had shot Jack dead, not when he had run off and sacrificed himself to save the world. That could be it. Though he’d guessed he’d probably never know for sure.  
  
‘I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. It’s mine. It’s all mine.’ Ianto shook his head and pulled at his hair with his hands. ‘I just... if only we had told them. If I hadn’t have wanted to find another doctor. Maybe, maybe Owen wouldn’t have... wouldn’t have done that if he had known you were... Then I wouldn’t have seen red and jumped on him. I wouldn’t have smacked my head on the rift manipulator trying to rip him to bits. I would have been able to stop you... stop you going to Abaddon...’  
  
It was no good wondering what might have been, and he knew it. What was done was done. Jack was dead. The baby was dead. If Jack hadn’t have gone and did what he did, a lot more people would be dead. Ianto knew, on some level, that Jack had had no choice but to go because there had been no other way to stop Abaddon and Bilis. That didn’t stop the pain; grief was no respecter of logic after all.  
  
Ianto leaned his head back against the cold surface, eyelids fluttering as he wondered how he could possibly survive without Jack, his friend, his companion, his lover. That they had betrayed each other meant nothing now that he was gone. Ianto was scared to imagine a life without him now. All he could picture was darkness, empty and cold, stretching out for an eternity.  
  
He must have drifted off or faded out for a little while because the next thing he knew, Toshiko was standing over Jack’s body, softly crying.  
  
Ianto tensed, but was too tired to feel protective over Jack now. Besides, it was Tosh. ‘I wish he wasn't gone,’ her voice was small and thin, almost like thinly spun crystal, ready to smash and break with too much pressure.  
  
‘Yeah.’ Ianto didn't know what else to say to that.  
  
‘You're going to miss him.’ Tosh slid down to sit with Ianto, taking his hands in hers and then pulling him into a tight embrace.  
  
Ianto clung tightly to her, not able to cry, his grief was so great, but at least able to take a bit of comfort in her arms. ‘Yes, I'm going to miss him Tosh.’  
  
‘I’m sorry,’ her voice was soothing, as was the small arms wrapped around her. ‘You loved him,’ she said simply.  
  
‘It wasn't just that, he... fuck,’ Ianto pulled back and rubbed a hand over his face. He wanted to explain properly to someone, to tell someone else what had really happened so that he wasn't the only one with this burden. ‘That wasn't just it,’ he began softly, standing and placing a light hand on Jack's belly. ‘There’s something we never told you. Any of you. We were going to but... but not yet.’  
  
‘What? What is it?’ she asked, gently, also getting to her feet. Her eyes were big and concerned and only grew more so when she put a hand on his back and he tensed. ‘Ianto?’  
  
‘If only you hadn’t have gone back in time,’ he said, eyes pressed tightly closed. ‘It would have been alright. It would have been alright.’ Ianto hung his head, frowning, breathing heavily, before turning to her. ‘I was jealous, Tosh. I was so... so jealous.’  
  
Realisation dawned on her and made her gasp a little. ‘Oh... oh I’m so sorry...’ After all, she had been the one who told him what had happened, because she had wanted to know if Ianto also knew that Jack couldn’t die, or about his real name. She had wanted to know and so she had let slip what happened when Jack had me the real, original Captain Jack Harkness. Then Ianto had painstakingly got the whole story out of her.  
  
‘Angry too. I... I...’ He paused to swallow approaching tears. ‘I was so angry and I was blinded by it. I betrayed him. But... but he betrayed me too. That was what I thought. You have to understand that, Tosh. You have to understand why... why I...’  
  
She nodded, eyes cast downwards at Jack’s cold, pale corpse. ‘You don’t have to explain...’  
  
‘No, I do. I have to tell someone, or I’ll go mad,’ his words were followed by a choked sob. ‘Jack... Jack was from the future.’  
  
‘I know.’  
  
‘He was different to us, in so many ways... inside. I mean, inside his body. He was different.’ Ianto knew he probably wasn’t making much sense, but he had to share it with someone and there was no one he trusted more than Tosh. She had to know why he had behaved the way he had. ‘After we lost Arthur... I wanted him back so much. And Jack, he had the idea that he wanted us to have another baby. One we wouldn’t lose like that. Jack... he has the organs to carry... so we... we got pregnant.’  
  
Toshiko stared at him with shining eyes, trying to understand. Realisation slowly began to dawn and the enormity of what he was saying left her gasping for breath. ‘No...?’  
  
‘He went off and fell in love with someone else, all the while carrying my... my...’ Ianto turned his face away, hardly able to breathe for the pain in his chest, ‘my son, Tosh. I’ve lost them both. And it’s all my fault.’  
  
‘No, no Ianto,’ Tosh interrupted, moving so that she could stand alongside Ianto. ‘No, Jack couldn't have done that.’ Tosh knew little of Jack Harkness, even after their trip to the past, but she couldn't think that Jack would go off and fall in love with someone else while knowingly carrying his other lover's child.  
  
‘Yes he could. You know what he always said. I mean, things for him are different... he could have.... had me and still wanted something else...’ Ianto sighed and shook off Tosh's well meaning hands.  
  
‘But he loved you...’  
  
‘Yes. He did.’ Ianto frowned for a moment, fiddling with the button at the top of Jack's gown. ‘Jack,’ he paused to think of how he wanted to frame his words, ‘Jack liked to fall in love. He liked the romance and newness of different partners. He liked having that feeling of looking at someone and feeling that rush of emotions as you fall head first... But being in love is so much more difficult. Especially when you're always having to run off and save the world.’ He managed half a smile at that, even if it was a hollow one. ‘Maybe he was always too brilliant and beautiful for this world... Like Arthur. Like Lisa.’ Ianto crumpled over Jack’s body. ‘Why can’t I hold onto anything I love, Tosh?’  
  
She couldn’t find any words to answer that, so instead she just held onto him as he well and truly broke down. They slid to the floor together, Ianto choking on his tears, gasping great sobs into her shoulder. Toshiko absorbed it all, feeling as thought it was the very least she could do.  
  
Never one to share his feelings if he could help it, Ianto soon forced himself to stop and reign it in. ‘S-sorry...’ he mumbled, and winced when he saw the big wet patch on her shoulder.  
  
‘I never liked this blouse much anyway,’ she said, chuckling.  
  
He gave her a small, sad smile and pulled away.  
  
‘Ianto,’ she began, a little uncertainly, ‘maybe the best thing to do is to get out of here. I know it’s hard but... after everything that’s happened, perhaps it’s time we did something normal? We could, um, go for a coffee?’  
  
A spike of anger went through him as he wanted to scream that he didn’t deserve to ever leave Jack’s side, or the morgue, but he forced it down. Instead he nodded. ‘Alright. Let’s do that.’  
  
The smile she gave him was so sweet he was glad he hadn’t yelled at her, even if he had no intention of actually joining her.  
  
‘I’ll meet you in the Tourists’ Info Office in about five?’ he said, wondering if she would be able to tell that he was lying; that all he wanted to do was disappear for a while and maybe play a little game of Retcon Roulette.  
  
Toshiko gave him a gentle, friendly rub on the back and left. Obviously she hadn’t seen the lie in his eyes.  
  
Ianto waited for her to disappear and looked back at Jack. He stroked his check with his hand, absently remembering him playing with Arthur and his lego, sending enormous beaming smiles his way every few minutes. Life had been so nearly perfect then. And even after Arthur was gone, they had shared so many moments he would never forget.  
  
But then he had ruined it all for jealousy. He’d followed Owen when he should have trusted Jack. For that alone Ianto didn’t deserve them. He barely deserved the few fleeting memories of happiness he was now clinging onto.  
  
Almost unthinkingly, he leaned over so that their faces were only inches apart, looking into the face of the man he loved for the last time. ‘I’ll never love anyone the way I loved you. And I’m so sorry,’ he whispered. ‘Bye.’  
  
Ianto pressed his warm lips against Jack’s cold ones, his entire body shaking, his tears falling onto Jack’s cheeks. In his mind, he could hear Arthur... maybe laughing, maybe crying, he didn’t know. He felt lightheaded, like he was giving Arthur and all of his memories away, which didn’t bother him; it would perhaps be a fitting penance.  
  
When he pulled away he felt like he might be about to faint and had to hold onto the side of the table for a moment to get a grip. Then he switched off his mobile phone and slowly walked away, feeling as though he was closing a chapter of his life, the ghosts of Jack and Arthur and the baby that never was fading away behind him.  
  
*  
  
Jack groaned softly, feeling that familiar burn and rush of breath back into him as a painful light grew behind his eyelids and a familiar ache began in his head.  
  
It sucked coming back from the dead.  
  
He remained still on the cold slab, quite thankful that his team hadn’t locked away already. It meant there was one less complication to deal with. Slowly, Jack could feel life slipping through his veins, reaching into his fingers, toes and elbows. He opened his eyes, blinking slowly and taking in the cold sterile surroundings of the morgue as he waited for his body to defrost from a prolonged death.  
  
From the tingling, overly-dead sensation in his toes, Jack could tell he had been out far longer than normal. Or longer than ever before. He turned his head just enough to ask Ianto how long he had been gone but found the man gone.  
  
Jack frowned and groaned, turning his head the other way, but once again, no Ianto. Jack was sure that Ianto would have been by his side, holding on to the last bits of hope that Jack was coming back to life.  
  
But then his memories slowly began to catch up with him; _oh, oh yeah_. That was why Ianto wasn't around.  
  
Ianto was still sore and upset with him over the other Jack. Of course he was; he’d never had a chance to explain. How could he really? Jack wasn’t even sure what had happened himself so he wasn’t sure he’d really be able to vocalise why he had been so quick to fall so far, so fast. Not even to Ianto. It was a mixture of so many emotions that had drawn him to Captain Jack Harkness, not just love, but it was clear in the way Ianto had been so hurt that was the only part that had mattered to him.  
  
They hadn’t had time to talk it through either, what with the world falling into chaos and all.  
  
A pain, deeper than anything he ever felt, went right through him from head to toe and he pressed his hand to his ever so slightly swollen stomach. Jack knew the baby was dead; he had known when he woke up to find the Hub falling to pieces and Ianto half unconscious after trying to kill Owen for shooting him. The constant tingle of life developing inside him had been gone and he had just known.  
  
To tell the truth, he had hoped Abaddon would kill him for good and get it over with. Waking up again was actually something of a disappointment. Ianto wasn’t there, although he suspected the teardrops left on his face indicated that he had been recently, and neither was the baby. The doctor Ianto had found for him - a former Torchwood One man with discretion and great credentials – had told them it was a boy and shown them scans he’d taken. So it wasn’t even some ethereal entity that would one day be theirs, they had seen their son growing inside him.  
  
And now he was gone. Just like Arthur.  
  
Too miserable to move but too cold to stay, Jack groaned and decided he might as well try to get out of there sometime. He rolled off the metal table and landed unceremoniously on the floor with a surprised yelp. Despite all of his experience in coming back from the dead, he’d never been so stiff before. As he idly sat back and tried to rub some life into his legs, Jack wondered how long he’d been out. It had to have been a few days. He had rigor mortis for crying out loud.  
  
Time ticked by in seconds and minutes before he was able to stand up. Jack then had to re-educate himself to walk, which was a bit more difficult than he thought it would be. Nevertheless, perseverance got him through, despite the horrid pangs in his stomach conspiring to torment him. Finally, and with more effort than he expected it would take, he made it out of the morgue and across to the lift. Only when he was about to step out did he realise, with some bemusement, that he was wearing a morgue smock and his ass was hanging out for all the world to see. Jack shook his head and stepped out anyway. That was the least of his worries really.  
  
Gwen caught sight of him first. She was sitting on the couch, looking pretty miserable. She gasped and got to her feet, moving over towards him apparently without further thought.  
  
Owen heard her move and swivelled around on his chair. The look of shock on his face might have been comical in other circumstances.  
  
Gwen came running over, grabbing Jack into a huge hug. His body was too tired from having to come back to life to do much more than grunt and squirm, pushing Gwen out of his arms, but he wished he could do more.  
  
Next Owen came stumbling over but Jack stopped him with a well placed hand. ‘Don't,’ was all he said as he staggered over to the nearest desk to lean against and catch his breath. Owen looked hurt, or as hurt as Jack figured he could look. He almost felt bad for him but only almost. The fact was, however unknowingly it had been, Owen had killed his son. So he was in no mood for a teary reunion quite yet.  
  
There was a clatter on the steps as Tosh made her way into the Hub. ‘Guys have you seen Ianto...?’ She stopped and gasped as she saw Jack sitting at her work station, out of breath and pale but alive. ‘Oh, Jack!’ She rushed forward and enveloped him into another hug.  
  
Jack bore this one a bit longer before grunting and pushing her aside as well. ‘Where's Yan?’  
  
Tosh backed away, and Jack was thankful she didn't wear the same hurtful expression that Gwen had. ‘I don't know he was supposed to meet me in reception about twenty minutes ago...’  
  
‘Ianto already left via the lift,’ Gwen's voice was small as she stepped closer, almost as if she was afraid Jack was going to snap at her.  
  
Tosh frowned and checked her mobile. ‘He said he would come to the coffee shop with me...’ She made a call. ‘His phone’s switched off.’  
  
Jack's concerned expression deepened, very aware of what Ianto could and would do whilst upset. ‘Go find him.’  
  
‘How?’  
  
‘I don't know!’ Jack yelled, turning to Owen in exasperation. ‘Just do it. Now!’ Owen scuttled over to his desk, grabbing his phone and muttering about possibly-suicidal, crazed tea-boys on the loose.  
  
Jack sighed and wearily made his way up the steps towards his office, pausing to watch the three of them run out.  
  
He decided the first thing to do was to put on some clothes, so he painfully climbed down into his private living space to get dressed. It was difficult because his body just no longer felt like his own; all awkward and sore and distended with death. The act of dressing managed to take at least times longer than normal and he was left breathless.  
  
Once this momentous task was completed, he went back to his office to call the team and check on them. None of them had found Ianto yet, so, with a sigh, he agreed to come lend a hand in the search. There was only so long he’d be able to sit there staring at the red dragon toy he kept on his desk before losing his mind anyway. Of that he was certain.  
  
Jack grabbed his greatcoat and slipped it over his shoulders, feeling its weight like he never had before. Then he stumbled across into the main Hub.  
  
A sound of something bubbling caught his attention and he looked at the hand he kept in the jar. At that moment, a very familiar sound caught his attention.  
  
Jack’s heart literally jumped in his chest. The Doctor had come. Finally come!  
  
But... the timing was terrible. He had to talk to Ianto... to explain. _Had_ to.  
  
Except, he had been waiting for the Doctor for a century or more. This might be his only chance.  
  
A pang in his stomach reminded him of all the reasons he wanted to be anywhere but here, in Cardiff, on Earth. Of course, he wanted to square things with Ianto, but he didn’t relish having that conversation; didn’t want to have to face him knowing that their child was dead. It was too much.  
  
Hell, he had sacrificed his life for them all. Surely he deserved a break? Just for a little while. To recover and recuperate.  
  
The dilemma tore at him for a moment or two but in the end there was only one course of action; that was to put every last bit of strength and energy he had into running and catching the Doctor before he was gone again, perhaps forever.  
  
*  
  
Ianto looked at the small glass and swirled the liquor around again. The hotel wasn't that nice. Okay, it was really lousy and there was paper peeling off the walls and the carpet had a few mysterious stains that he frankly didn't want to even think about.  
  
However, it was the last place that the others would look for him, and that was all that counted.  
  
Wrinkling his nose in distaste of his surroundings again, Ianto looked back down to the drink and dropped two tablets into the dark liquor.  
  
Could he really go through with it though? Could he just erase so many years of his life with such off handed ease? His friends from the first Torchwood... Tosh, Gwen and even Owen. Could he just erase them all from his mind as if they had never existed?  
  
And what of Lisa? And Arthur? Was it fair to him to erase all knowledge of them? To pretend that Ianto had never even known Lisa's smile or Arthur's giggle. Could he really pretend that he hadn't failed either of them?  
  
Was it fair to erase them just to make it easier for him to go on?  
  
And what of Jack? Could he really take those precious memories away?  
  
Sighing with the burden of so many decisions, Ianto looked at the note that detailed his new life and everything he needed to know as he mulled over his decision.


	2. Chapter 2

Jack staggered back into the central node of the TARDIS, not exactly sure where he’d been sick and not really caring if it had been the bathroom or not. He felt like hell.   
  
It was his stomach that hurt the most; sharp stabbing pains and muscle cramps the likes of which he’d never felt before. Of course it was ten times worse knowing what must be causing it; that he had to be reabsorbing the foetus. He remembered being told prior to his procedure that that was the standard manner a nanogene-created womb in a male body dealt with miscarriage.   
  
Fuck it hurt though. Every day it seemed to get worse. Jack was certain it would turn around sometime soon and he’d get better but it really did seem to be taking its time.   
  
Before he knew it, he was slumped against the TARDIS wall and sliding down.  
  
Martha ran over to him, glaring. She had been trying to examine him all week but he’d just kept brushing her off. After all, this wasn’t the sort of thing that could be easily explained.  
  
‘Look, for crying out loud, you’re traveling with _two_ doctors,’ Martha said, irritably. ‘Granted only one of us actually trained...’  
  
‘I’m trained!’ the Doctor yelled from the other side of the box. ‘In lots of things!’  
  
‘... _medically_ trained, but that should be enough. So let me help you.’  
  
For once he didn’t argue with her or stop her from touching his swollen stomach. He leaned back and flinched, and then suddenly found himself crying.   
  
‘I’m sorry,’ she gasped and pulled away, surprised. ‘Did I hurt you...?’  
  
‘No... I’m just...’ He had no idea why he was crying. It was weird.   
  
‘Mind if I open your clothes up to see properly?’  
  
He wanted so very much to make a quip about letting pretty girls undress him and yet couldn’t. So he just nodded and pressed his eyes closed.   
  
Jack wasn't able to do much more than let her do what she wanted. He slumped onto the warm, vibrating Tardis floor as Martha's nimble fingers opened his shirt and slipped down his braces.   
  
He wanted to ask where she had been hiding the stethoscope she pulled it out to check his heartbeat, but was too tired to bother.   
  
‘Doctor...’ Martha murmured, moving her stethoscope lower, feeling that perhaps she had done something wrong. ‘I think there's something...’   
  
Jack groaned, wanted to clasp his stomach, ‘I’m fine...’  
  
‘You are _not_ fine. Hold on... I think... I think there’s a heartbeat.’  
  
Frowning, the Doctor came over and pointed his sonic screwdriver against Jack's belly.   
  
‘I was... I was pregnant. Not anymore, it’s...’ Jack panted, sweat beading on his forehead. ‘It died.’  
  
‘Nope, Jacky my boy. I'm afraid you're still with child. With living child.’  
  
‘...What?’   
  
After a pensive moment, the Doctor’s eyes suddenly lit up and he started grinning. ‘You know what this means? I’m going to be an Uncle!’  
  
Martha looked between them, disbelief etched into her features. Jack was no less shocked at the news.  
  
‘It’s not possible... It’s not possible...’ he gasped.  
  
‘You’re telling me,’ Martha said, carefully pressing her hands on his stomach to be sure. ‘This is incredible! But I thought you were, you know, a guy...’  
  
‘I am! I’m just not from your time.’ He flinched at her touch. ‘Christ it hurts... Oh fuck!’  
  
‘Is that uh... normal? The pain I mean?’  
  
Jack shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. Wasn’t like this the last time.’ He forced himself to sit up and leaned back against the TARDIS’ wall. ‘Doctor, are you sure he’s alive? He was dead, I know he was.’  
  
The sonic screwdriver was again passed over his stomach. ‘Nope, alive, if not quite old enough to be kicking. Seems a little weak though. Hmmm.’   
  
His frown made Jack feel a little frantic. ‘What? What is it? Doctor? How weak?’  
  
‘Tell me about his other genetic father. Was he human?’  
  
Jack nodded, wishing he had the energy to slyly pretend to be offended that he would even ask.   
  
‘So it’s not a gene mismatch.’ Still apparently pondering this, the Doctor wandered off around the TARDIS.  
  
Martha helped him cover himself up, her eyes bright and a little excited. ‘So...?’ she began but was unable to finish.  
  
The Doctor bounced back over towards them, interrupting her without thought. ‘Why did you think he was dead? What happened?’  
  
‘It’s kind of a long story.’  
  
A seat was brought over by Martha and between them they helped Jack up onto it. He couldn’t help but smile a little at the sudden attentiveness of them both.   
  
‘Well, Ianto and me...’  
  
‘Ah, so it was your Ianto,’ Martha said, with a suppressed giggle. ‘Doesn’t surprise me considering how much you talk about him.’  
  
‘No I don’t...’  
  
Her eyebrows said differently and he didn’t have the strength to argue.  
  
‘Well whatever. Ianto and I got stuck to this alien device and it made a baby. But it turned out it wasn’t so much a baby as part of its counselling programme. Anyway, once it was ended, we decided we wanted a real one of our own. So, we got pregnant. Then, to cut a long story short, I got killed a few times. One time was for days. I knew after the first time that he was probably dead. Even if he lived through that time, there was no way he could have survived me being dead for days.’ He frowned. ‘I don’t understand how he’s alive now. It shouldn’t be possible.’   
  
Martha looked sympathetic but the Doctor looked thoughtful.  
  
‘This alien device, it wouldn’t happen to have been made by the Garacoikan would it?’  
  
‘Uh yeah actually. How did you...?’  
  
‘Ha! Perfect! Ah, a brilliant peoples, the Garacoikan. Imagine - a whole culture built up around childhood and reproduction and that sort of thing. They don’t only help their own kind reproduce either, they help all kinds of species. Very advanced in that field. Very advanced. I wonder how one of their machines got to Earth...?’  
  
Jack was about to answer that he didn’t know. However he didn’t get a chance. The Doctor was too excited to stop talking.  
  
‘Oh but this is a marvellous turn of events! We should pay a visit to the Garacoikan homeworld and let them check you out. I could look up a few friends while I’m there. Brilliant!’ He was already fiddling with the TARDIS controls. ‘This will be fun!’  
  
‘For you maybe,’ Jack groaned.  
  
*  
  
Jack underwent the plethora of tests as stoically as he could, trying to retain that small shred of masculine dignity as long as possible. ‘My ankles hurt,’ Jack whimpered, trying to bend over to rub them but the nurses just pressed him back onto the soft bed.  
  
‘Stop complaining and take it like a man.’ Martha grinned brightly as she and the Doctor entered the cheery, brightly lit nursery and took a seat near Jack. They both had drinks in their hands.  
  
‘Besides that being a contradiction in terms, I would like to point out that pregnancy is the time when _women_ get to complain the most, so I have double prerogative,’ Jack took the beverage offered to him and thanked the nurses as they stepped out of the room to give them all a bit of privacy. ‘Give me a break.’  
  
‘Just hush and drink,’ was all Martha said.  
  
‘Well, Doc?’ Jack turned to his friend and set the smoothie-like beverage aside. The Garacoikans had embraced the Doctor's return, as well as Jack's problems, with open arms and had involved the Doctor in many of Jack's procedures, often deferring to him in need of a decision rather than Jack. ‘How does it look?’  
  
‘Well, it appears you were partially right. When you died it damaged the baby and stopped development. Apparently it did die,’ he replied. Jack nodded and waited for the other shoe to drop. ‘However, sometime later, something started it back up again... but your body is no longer being accommodating. Anyway, it wants to be delivered but it hasn't fully developed yet.’  
  
Jack worked on getting his mind around that, ‘So...’  
  
‘They need to operate.’  
  
Although he didn’t like the sound of that one little bit, Jack couldn’t help but feel a little relieved he wasn’t going to have to go through another five day long, sleepless, foodless, terribly painful “natural” birth. At least operations tended to involve anaesthetic and were relatively quick. That the baby would be at least three months premature did concern him a great deal though. On Earth chances of survival outside of the womb at that age were slight and there was no way he was going to lose this kid now.   
  
‘Are you sure it’s safe?’ he asked, voice falling into a shaky whisper.  
  
‘Safe? Oh yes, yes. You’ll never find yourself in better hands when it comes to having a baby. Not that I’ve ever had the pleasure myself.’   
  
Jack signed and nodded. ‘When do they want to do it?’  
  
‘Soon. Uh... maybe... now?’  
  
His eyes went wide as the Doctor grinned.   
  
‘You’ll be alright,’ Martha told him, earnestly. ‘They seem really good. I’ve worked in obstetrics and trust me, this place makes the NHS look like a warzone. Though I suppose that’s not saying much... What I’m trying to say is, you’ll be fine. They’ve prepped incubators and a surgery and seem really ready to do this. The baby will be fine. So will you.’  
  
He felt touched by her words in a way, and decided that Martha would make a great Doctor one day. She was certainly more of a comfort than a hyperactive Time Lord at any rate.  
  
Jack blinked, but allowed the nurses to come in and begin to wheel his bed towards a set of magenta double doors. ‘Well, guess I'll see you on the other side, Doctor...’ Jack muttered as they pushed him in and began fiddling with the various tubes and bags that were connected to his bed.   
  
He saluted both the Doc and to Martha as he felt a sedative slowly washing over his body making everything feel light and airy and so very very relaxing. Jack idly wondered if he’d be allowed to remain conscious for the procedure, as was often the practise on Earth. It soon became clear that he wouldn’t.  
  
In what seemed like minutes later, Jack was being awoken from a deep sleep. His head felt muzzy and his body ached in many different ways. But what was very different was that he no longer had that feeling of nausea and sickening pain in his belly. It was completely gone.   
  
He looked down to his now completely flat stomach, finding a small fading scar and panicked. ‘Doctor? Martha?’  
  
‘Hallo there sleeping beauty.’ The Doctor appeared beside him, smiling. ‘How do you feel?’  
  
‘Uh... better?’ Once more he looked at his stomach. ‘Flatter?’  
  
‘Didn’t I say they were good? See. You’re good as new. Probably won’t even be a scar.’  
  
‘The baby?’ Jack tried to get up, determined to find him, but his head was very woozy.  
  
The Doctor put his hands on his shoulders to hold him still. ‘In an incubator device. They’re doing tests but it looks like he’s going to be fine given time. Martha’s with him...’  
  
A force more powerful than even the Doctor compelled Jack to get out of bed and find his child. He had to see him and know for sure, once and for all, that he really was alive. When the Doctor realised he wasn’t going to be able to stop him, he grudgingly helped support Jack as they went along the brightly coloured corridors together.   
  
They arrived in a room with a large machine at the centre of it and several nurses working around the place. Martha was at the front of it. She turned around when they entered and grinned.   
  
Quickly, she held up a device which looked like a small telescope up and clicked a button, making it flash. A photograph rolled out of it. ‘It’s like a Polaroid camera,’ she enthused. ‘I thought we could make an album. For Ianto.’  
  
Jack moved her aside and staggered to the incubator machine. Inside, through a veil of glass, was a tiny little pink thing lying in a blanket. He pressed his hand against the side, feeling a terrible urge to touch him, made all the worse knowing he wouldn’t be able to.  
  
One of the nurses started chirruping something and the Doctor listened, knowing he’d have to translate for Jack and Martha. ‘Oo, seems they’re onto something.’ He nodded along with whatever was being said before turning to them again. ‘They’re recognising specifically Garacoikan patented radiation in him. Apparently, that device you were attached to originally was what they call a Forecaster Unit. It takes energy from two beings, mixes them to forecast their child, in order to test whether they’re ready for the real thing, providing some counselling service by showing them if they’re really compatible or not. Then the energy remains with them to help the process along if they decide to go ahead and reproduce.’ He listened to some more of the intelligible alien dialogue for a moment. ‘Oh, but it’s not compatible with human physiology. So although it was programmed to remain in your bodies and protect any baby with both of your genes - apparently that was what brought this one back to life and saw him through - it’s still a negative radiation in his system.’  
  
‘Can you get it out of him?’ he asked the Nurse, frantically.  
  
The Doctor translated and waited for a reply. ‘She says they have some ideas but need to do tests first. At the moment he’s not in any danger.’  
  
He nodded and went back to the incubator. A strange memory hit him, of Ianto leaned over him, tears falling from his cheeks as he kissed him, Arthur’s giggle ringing somewhere in his mind... Jack didn’t know if it was real but if it was, he wondered if perhaps there had been some sort of energy transfer taking place. After all, he’d needed it. The baby obviously had too and, by some miracle, it had somehow seen the child back to life.   
  
As incredible as it seemed, in a way Arthur had saved their baby. Jack couldn’t quite believe it.  
  
*  
  
Ianto wasn't quite sure how much time had passed since he had entered the hotel room. He had hung a “Do Not Disturb” sign, so he couldn't even go by the maids’ cleanings as a guide (though, if he didn't do something soon, he was sure they were going to come in and check to make sure someone was still alive in there).   
  
He had thrown out the first glass of whiskey and Retcon he had poured. And the second and the third. By his calculations he was somewhere around glass number six, and it was still whiskey.  
  
The problem he was having was just that he couldn't figure out if Retconning was what he deserved, or if that was too much the coward’s way out; just forgetting everything and moving blithely along.  
  
Swirling the brown liquid again, Ianto weighed his options one more time.   
  
But in the end, he knew what his decision was going to inevitably be. He could never willingly forget Arthur, or even Jack. That wasn't right, not for them.  
  
Sighing and leaving the glass, Ianto grabbed his coat and wallet, ignoring the 2-day old growth of his beard and heading directly back into Torchwood.   
  
It was just like after Lisa had died; he wasn't allowed to forget, he had to continue on with the memories and the ghosts. Forgetting would be too easy. It would be like a murderer escaping justice.   
  
No, he was going to live with his betrayal and knowing that Jack was lying on a slab in the morgue, never to wake, never to forgive him and make it all right again.   
  
He supposed there would probably be a price to pay for disappearing for two days without notice. Owen would probably jumble the archives and make him put the place back to rights, or give him some disgusting cleaning duty of some kind. Ianto almost smiled at the thought. As if that sort of thing would bother him anymore.  
  
Ianto switched his mobile phone back on and found two dozen messages and missed phone calls waiting for him. He decided not to answer them. Instead strode calmly into the Tourists’ Information Office and down into the Hub.   
  
The shriek which greeted him came from Tosh. She ran over to him and grabbed him in a hug, not noticing that he didn’t return it at all. ‘I thought we’d never see you again!’ she gasped. ‘Where have you been?’  
  
‘Nowhere,’ he replied, blandly. ‘Sorry.’  
  
‘Ianto,’ Tosh moved to take his arm but he just shook his head and walked out of her grasp.   
  
‘I'm fine now, I really am,’ Ianto insisted, surprised at his own ability to fake sincerity as he tried to soothe Tosh's worries.  
  
‘Where were you?’ Ianto sighed as Gwen came up behind him.   
  
‘I had a lot of things to think over,’ was all Ianto would say, giving her a tight-lipped smile.  
  
‘Well, hurry up and take a shower, we need help figuring out where Jack went,’ Owen sulked down the stairs, donut in hand and scowl on his face. But what caught Ianto's attention was just one word. _Jack._  
  
He gave Owen a cold stare. ‘I think it’s pretty obvious where he is.’  
  
That made their erstwhile leader stop and look at him in an odd way. ‘You know where Jack is?’  
  
‘Uh... yes.’ Ianto looked around them, wondering if this was some kind of sick game they were playing. ‘Of course I do.’  
  
‘Well then why the fuck didn’t you tell us?’ Owen growled and then glared at him, folding his arms across his chest. ‘Oh I see. Some little secret, eh? Bet you two are shacked up somewhere, all cosy...’  
  
‘Owen...’ Toshiko began, in the midst of some realisation.  
  
‘Excuse me? I’m not sure what you’re implying but I don’t appreciate it. And if you don’t shut the fuck up...’   
  
‘Oo look at the scary tea boy...’  
  
‘Owen, he doesn’t know Jack’s alive!’ Toshiko shouted over them and looked to Ianto. ‘We couldn’t get hold of you and we didn’t know where you were. Jack’s alive. He came back.’  
  
It took a few seconds for him to process the concept. ‘What?’ he gasped.  
  
‘It’s true!’ Gwen stepped forwards. ‘But he disappeared while we were out looking for you. We don’t know where he went.’  
  
Tosh sat down at her desk and tapped at the keyboard in fast strokes, bringing something up to show him. ‘The CCTV footage in the Hub showed this.’  
  
A somewhat fuzzy piece of footage showed Jack stop in the middle of the Hub, then suddenly grab the disembodied Hand and make a run for the door.   
  
‘All of the CCTV around the Plass went down at the same time, for about thirty seconds to a minute. We don’t know why but it must be connected.’  
  
Ianto leaned in a little, frowning. ‘Replay that again, Tosh.’  
  
She did as he asked. Gwen and Owen closed in behind him, looking as well.   
  
‘Turn the volume up as high at will go,’ he said, not sure if he was imagining the faint sound coming up against the fuzz. ‘Can you get rid of the static?’  
  
‘I’ll try.’ Toshiko nodded and ran it through a filter.  
  
They were left with a sound which made Ianto’s heart plummet in his chest. He’d definitely heard that sound before; in Torchwood One, on the day his whole world imploded.  
  
A half-forgotten memory came to him as he heard it, of him and Jack in the park; Jack trying to explain why he hadn’t been able to accept Arthur as his own, as much as he’d wanted to.  
  
 _‘I was a t-time traveller. From the 51st century. Long story but I kind of crashed back in 1890 and I’ve been waiting around ever since.’  
  
‘For another Time Traveller?’  
  
‘Something like that.’_  
  
Ianto’s eyes slid shut. Another Time Traveller. He had meant the Doctor. Torchwood’s oldest enemy. Jack had gone with him. He’d been waiting for him for over a century and finally he’d come.  
  
‘Ianto? What is it?’ Gwen asked, placing an unwelcome hand on his back.  
  
‘He’s happy then,’ he mumbled. ‘He’s with the Doctor.’  
  
Toshiko looked startled and then sad, but Owen and Gwen both looked pretty confused.   
  
‘Meaning?’ Owen asked, roughly.  
  
‘Meaning, he’s not coming back.’ Of course he wasn’t. Ianto had betrayed him. They’d lost the baby because of that betrayal. Why would he return?   
  
Wherever he was, Jack must hate him now. Ianto supposed it was a fitting punishment, to have to live knowing Jack was alive somewhere and never coming back to him.   
  
‘I’ll need to tidy his office,’ he said, with all the calm of a man with an empty heart.   
  
No one said anything as he slowly went inside it and closed the door behind him.   
  
Ianto had intended to check the paperwork on the desk, just in case there was anything there that Jack wouldn’t have wanted Owen to see. But his hand instinctively brushed past the pile of papers and over to the red dragon toy left nearby. Before he knew it, he had clasped it to his chest and was sinking to the floor, breaking apart inside.


	3. Chapter 3

Jack sat in a highback chair, a book on his lap and an enclosed bassinet to his right. His son ( _his son!_ ) was still asleep inside the crib, sucking softly on his fingers in a way that was vaguely familiar to Jack. Even premature the baby was cute to look at.  
  
He set the book down to stand over the child, wondering what his name was going to be; what he was going to be like when he was older. Despite the insistence of the others, he refused to name him without Ianto there with him; not just because he felt that he would have to deal with Ianto's righteous indignation at having missed the birth as it was, but also he wanted to involve the other father in this, and soon hopefully.   
  
The door creaked open and Jack looked up to smile at Martha as she slipped into the nursery room, holding the camera-device she had picked up somewhere in her hands. ‘More pictures for Ianto. I’ve started collecting them together for that album. I’ve started off with the ones from during and just after the birth...’   
  
‘During the birth?’ Jack replied, eyebrows raising and smiling at Martha's nervousness.  
  
‘Well the Doctor thought it was a good idea...’ she muttered, relaxing at Jack's soft chuckle. Turning the flash off of the camera, she aimed and took a picture of daddy and son.   
  
There was another creak to the door and the Doctor and three of the nurses entered, grave expressions on all of their faces.   
  
‘So, Doc, what do our good physicians say?’  
  
‘They have an idea,’ the Doctor began, manoeuvring Jack back into the tall chair as the nurses went to assess the baby. ‘As you know, he was brought back to life by the Garacoikan energy matrix which lingered around in your system after you went through that test period with the Forecaster. Right?’ The Doctor paused as the information settled into Jack's mind, assessing how much of this he had taken in before, when his attention had been on his newborn son. ‘That was what it was meant to do. But as we discussed, it wasn’t calibrated for humans. So the radiation isn’t leaving his body the way it should. They need to get it out before it adversely affects him.’  
  
Jack nodded, his face grim as he looked over at the small body of his son; how little and frail he looked.   
  
‘They need to advance his age so that they can clear the radiation out without it hurting him in any way.’  
  
It took a few seconds for Jack to really understand that, but when he did, he looked a little shocked. ‘Come again? What do you mean, “advance his age”? What does that mean?’  
  
‘Only in small bursts of a few months at a time, until it’s definitely gone.’  
  
‘Wait just a minute,’ Jack said and unconsciously moved to place himself between the nurses and his baby, protectively. ‘They want to grow him up?’   
  
Martha moved beside him and put a hand on his shoulder, also putting herself between the nurses and the kid. She looked at the Doctor with equal anticipation, not sure she liked the sound of what he was suggesting either.  
  
‘It’s the most natural way to do it,’ he said, gently. ‘They can’t get rid of the radiation themselves, but it is programmed to dissipate with age in non-humans. It should work the same way for him. However if we let it happen in its natural time he’d not survive that long. This way, the process is sped up. With any luck, he’ll only need to be grown up to a human age of about one year old to get rid of it. Or so they’re estimating. Then he’ll be right as rain - if you consider rain to be at all right, that is.’  
  
Jack looked at the nurses, then at Martha, then at the Doctor and finally at the tiny child between them all. The idea of losing time with him hurt Jack in a way he couldn’t even express. He’d never experienced the first few years of life with Arthur and he really didn’t want to lose the opportunity to do so with his new son. And he hated the thought of Ianto missing out on so much without even a say. ‘There must be another way,’ he muttered. ‘There must be.’  
  
The hand on his shoulder moved to rub his back in soothing circles. ‘I’m sure they know what they’re doing,’ Martha said.   
  
‘It’s not that, it’s just...’ He sighed, unable to express how he was feeling. It was hard to keep the tears from welling up in his eyes, though he would resolutely blame any crying on the left over oestrogen in his system for as long as he could get away with it. ‘Doctor,’ he said, and looked up to him with a hard stare, ‘are you sure there’s nothing else they can do? Are you sure this radiation, or energy, or whatever it is, will kill him if we don’t do this?’  
  
‘So they told me,’ the Doctor replied, stuffing his hands in his pockets and looking down at the floor. ‘I’m sorry Jack.’  
  
Jack looked down at his son, memorising his features the way that he was now as much as he could. After all, he had no idea what he would be like the next time he saw him. Jack committed to memory his little pointed ears, his long-looking fingers and the nose that would most certainly be just like Ianto’s. Although he hadn’t yet seen his eyes, he knew they would be blue and hoped they would be a darkish tone, like the Welsh sky, just like Ianto’s were. He wanted to touch him and hold him, and remember what he smelled like before they took him away, just in case, but it wasn’t possible through the covered-over bassinet. Finally, he gave the nurses a slight nod and allowed them to wheel the carrier away.   
  
When they were gone, the air seemed to be thick with the silence between Jack, Martha and the Doctor, as if none of them really knew what to say.   
  
‘Tell you what,’ Martha said, finally, making an obvious effort to be upbeat, ‘I found a really marvellous café around the corner from here. Does amazing desserts which taste a lot like ice-cream but seems to be a bit thicker. You have to try some, Jack.’ She took hold of his hand, asking him to come along with her eyes.  
  
He couldn’t help but give in to that; Jack supposed he just had an inbuilt weakness for Joneses. ‘Alright.’  
  
They went out of the door together, only turning round when the Doctor yelled after them. ‘Hey, you didn’t invite me!’ He hurried to catch up. ‘I’m hurt.’  
  
Martha rolled her eyes. ‘Doctor, would you like to have some ice-cream-ish stuff with us?’ she asked, patiently.  
  
‘If you’re offering.’ He hooked his arm around hers and together the three of them left the medical facility.  
  
The world outside was colourful to say the least. Every street corner had a basket of toys and every street had a park. The lampposts were painted in rainbow colours and almost every surface, from building to road, was covered in soft felt material of every shade imaginable. The Doctor really hadn’t been kidding when he’d described the culture as child-orientated.   
  
After being nearly knocked from their feet a few times by children playing, they reached the café Martha had been talking about. But before they could order anything, a child ran up to the Doctor and yelled something approximating his name before mimicking shooting him with a toy weapon.  
  
He pretended to be shot and then ran after the child in good-natured retaliation. The child was soon joined by others, and the Doctor was participating in a full-blown battle, running around and laughing like he was one of them.  
  
‘Would you believe _those_ are the friends he said he wanted to visit?’ Martha said, trying not to laugh. ‘Honestly, he’s supposed to be a Time Lord...’  
  
‘What good is being a Time Lord if you can’t regress a little?’ the Doctor yelled before crumpling to the ground, feigning injury.  
  
Despite himself, Jack had to laugh at that.  
  
‘So, Jack,’ Martha started, smiling up at him as the waiter deposited her ice cream down at the table before wandering off to serve some of the children that were peering intently into the glass counter.   
  
‘So, Martha...?’   
  
Matha licked her lips as she dug into the soft ice cream substitute. ‘So, how are you doing?’  
  
Jack paused, his spoon halfway to his mouth as he ran that question through his mind. ‘In what way do you mean?’   
  
‘Well, in the past 72 hours you've given birth to a son and then have to deal with the information that he has deadly radiation in his system and that the only way to save him is to grow him up in a controlled environment. It must be affecting you somehow.’  
  
Jack sighed and sank back into the comfortable patio chair, fiddling with a button on his coat. ‘I just... It's a bit complicated.’  
  
‘What in your life isn't Captain Harkness?’  
  
Jack blinked and surprised himself when he actually began chuckling softly. ‘You have me there Miss Jones.’  
  
‘You can’t age. You can’t die. And now you’re travelling around with a partially psychotic time traveller...’  
  
‘With great hearing!’ the Doctor shouted from the road, where he was currently swinging a giggling child around by her arms, two more attached to his legs apparently wanting to go next.  
  
‘I know.’ Jack shrugged, growing a little melancholy for a moment with thoughts of the slightly more normal life he’d left behind. ‘Shame the Doc can’t help me with the first and second problems. Then perhaps things would be a bit simpler.’  
  
She shrugged. ‘Well, sure. Although it’s a pretty amazing gift to have, you know.’ Martha immediately realised she’d said the wrong thing by the expression on Jack’s face. ‘I mean, obviously, I don’t know what it’s like.’  
  
‘No, you don’t.’ He frowned deeply, staring at his dessert. ‘Before this happened to me, I probably would have thought it a good thing. You know, able to live through the decades, on and on, seeing the world change, always safe from harm. But it doesn’t work that way. We, humans I mean, we connect to people, not to the times. I’ve seen more friends and lovers die away than I can bear some days.’  
  
‘Jack,’ she said, softly, putting her hand over his. ‘I’m sorry.’  
  
‘One day I’ll have to watch it happen to Ianto, and to my son. You see why I don’t want this “gift”?’  
  
She nodded, understanding him much better for that explanation. ‘I see why you didn’t want them to age the baby upwards a little. You don’t want to lose any time with him.’  
  
‘I know it’s not much in the grand scheme of things. It’s just... a lot when you know you’re going to outlive everyone you ever loved, no matter what you do.’   
  
Jack turned a little and caught sight of the Doctor sitting amongst his friends, listening to them jabber away. His eyes lifted upwards and fixed onto Jack with an incredible intensity, as if he were communicating his understanding through them. Of course, Jack knew the Doctor would probably be around for a long time at least. But as much as he loved the ancient being, in his own way, Jack didn’t want to wait out the end of time with him, his heart breaking for all the people he loved and lost. That wasn’t how he saw his future.  
  
He didn’t realise he had faded into his thoughts until he heard Martha speaking to him again. ‘Sorry?’ he asked, aware of missing what she’d asked.  
  
‘I just asked about your Ianto. What’s he like? I mean, how do you think he’ll react to all of this?’  
  
Jack sighed, his eyes sliding closed for a moment. ‘To tell you the truth, we didn’t part on the best of terms. Actually, I kind of left without saying goodbye,’ he said, and winced.   
  
‘You left without saying goodbye?’ Martha deadpanned, her spoon clattering into her ice cream dish and sort of underlining what Jack already felt.  
  
‘Yes, please, rub it in.’  
  
‘You don't think that that was perhaps a _bad_ idea?’  
  
‘Well, I didn't really have much time for thinking alright?’ Jack huffed and flagged the waiter down for a stiff drink, but apparently the only thing being served was lemonade and a fruity punch. Jack asked for water.   
  
‘There was some... shit that was going on.’  
  
‘What kind of shit? Like between you and him or like just in general?’  
  
‘Like, as in the world is about to end as we know it shit.’  
  
‘Ah, that kind.’  
  
‘Yeah... not long before you guys showed, I fell through a time bubble or something and got stuck back in 1940 with... a guy I knew of a long time ago, though he didn't know me. Kind of a hero I guess. Well, one thing led to another and then before I knew it...’  
  
‘Woah nelly, back it up. What do you mean one thing led to another?’  
  
Jack stared at Martha, giving her an exasperated look coupled with a bit of a smirk.  
  
‘You didn't! But weren't you pregnant...?’   
  
‘Martha, this is male anatomy, being pregnant doesn't stop _that_ from happening.’ Jack chuckled as Martha flushed before turning to slap his arm.  
  
‘But what about Ianto...?"’  
  
‘Well, I didn't really do anything like that with... the other guy. But Ianto found out about him anyways.’ Jack sighed and ran a hand through his hair, ‘I didn't have time to explain anything before the world was ending and then I was dead and then I was gone... again...’  
  
Martha sat back in her chair, frowning at him, apparently trying to sort everything out in her mind. ‘So you cheated on him, even though you were pregnant, then you got yourself killed, then you left with us without saying goodbye to him...?’  
  
‘It’s not as bad as it sounds,’ he protested, weakly.   
  
The expression of dismay on her face told him otherwise. Jack groaned, knowing she was right. It was quite a mess he’d gotten himself into.  
  
‘Okay okay, I know it’s bad. But in my defence, I thought we’d lost our kid. Actually, no, we _did_ lose him. I was upset. I wasn’t thinking straight. And then the Doctor came to the rift and I just thought, “I need to get out of here”. I took my chance.’ He sighed, deeply, running his fingers through his hair. ‘It was just bad timing.’  
  
‘Well at least when you go back, you won’t be going alone,’ Martha said, and smiled. ‘I bet he takes one look at that kid and forgives you for leaving.’  
  
‘You think?’  
  
‘Sure. After all, there’s no way he’d be alive if you hadn’t have come with us.’  
  
Jack lowered his eyes, feeling a knot tie in his stomach. He hadn’t considered that before, but it was true. He had no idea what would have happened to his baby if he was still on Earth and didn’t really want to try and imagine it. A smile dawned on his face as he realised that going with the Doctor had saved their son; a lot of the guilt he was feeling dissipated and relief flooded his body.  
  
‘Now I see why the Doctor wanted you to be his companion. You’re a smart kid,’ he said.  
  
‘Kid?’ Martha gasped, as it were a slanderous accusation, her smile the only clue to the fact that she was just kidding around. ‘I’m sitting here having a polite conversation with you, while the Doctor runs around playing some alien version of Cops and Robbers, and you call _me_ the kid?’  
  
Jack laughed, a more genuine laughter than he’d managed before the whole time they were there. It lasted precisely for the length of time it took for Martha to scoop up a dollop of the ice cream substitute they were eating and drop it down the back of his neck. Jack leapt up with a shriek while she laughed. The Captain scooped up some of his dessert with his spoon and flung it at her, slingshot fashion. Martha screeched and went to get more ammo to repay him for that.   
  
It wasn’t long until the Doctor and his friends were joining in, taking the ice cream fight out onto the street, Martha and Jack versus them. The café staff happily provided them with some extra ammo and a few of them even joined in. On a planet where games and play were ranked far above most other things in terms of importance, it really was quite normal behaviour.   
  
*  
  
Ianto finished brewing the large pot of coffee. It ought to be enough to get him through the early hours of the morning. Maybe he’d catch a small nap on the couch before the others arrived. He took a deep breath, inhaled the rich aroma of the dark, heavenly coffee beans, and then took his cup over to the desk he was using.   
  
A large red dragon sat incongruously on his desk amid papers, folders and miscellaneous alien tech. Ianto hadn't been able to part with it since Jack had gone; hadn't been able to take it home either, not that Ianto ever went home.   
  
Home was where Arthur's bedroom still was, where Ianto still thought of the master bed as his and Jack's, and where there were shirts in the armoire that weren't his, cufflinks he had never worn, and quite a few pair of braces stuffed among his ties.   
  
No, home was a place Ianto hadn’t been in a long time, and he couldn't help but think that he wouldn't be going there for an even longer time.   
  
Ianto picked up Draig and turned him over in his hands, remembering the little child who would never be parted with the pretend beast. Sighing, Ianto hugged the stuffed being close, taking a bit of comfort from a child’s toy before he heard the grinding noise of the Hub door opening back up.   
  
He was sufficiently startled enough to nearly knock his carefully prepared coffee off the desk. With one hand he rescued it from falling and with the other he put Draig on the chair behind him, hoping whoever was coming didn’t see the toy. Ianto felt pathetic enough as it was without more pitying looks from the girls or sneering from Owen. He didn’t want to be seen snivelling over the toy that represented so much to them all, like he was going to fall apart. He wasn’t going to, simply because that would be far too easy.  
  
Only when Owen walked through the door and fixed him with an angry glare did he remember that he had been ordered home at least four hours ago. Ianto contemplated hiding but it was already too late to get away.   
  
The look Owen gave him was positively homicidal. ‘What the fuck are you still doing here? I told you to fuck off home and get a decent night’s sleep for once.’   
  
Ianto winced a little inside but didn’t reply. He just continued with his paperwork. ‘Too busy. What are you doing back here?’  
  
‘Left my wallet.’ Owen picked it up off his desk and put it in his pocked before stalking over to Ianto. ‘I’m your boss, and I’m also your doctor, and I said you should go home.’  
  
‘And I said I’m too busy,’ Ianto replied, through gritted teeth.   
  
‘Look, you stupid teaboy,’ Owen growled, ‘you will do as I tell you.’ His angry expression faded a little as he caught sight of something behind Ianto, and moved around the desk. He picked up Draig and stared at Ianto with an expression of contempt. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ he sighed.  
  
Ianto grabbed it from his hands and put all his energy into not blushing. He stepped away, putting his back to Owen, holding the toy close.   
  
‘I’m going to tell you this one more time; get the fuck out of my Hub.’ Owen darted around him and yanked the toy out of his hands, stomping over and planting it on Toshiko’s desk.   
  
‘It’s not _your_ Hub...’  
  
‘Oh yeah? You think Captain Harkness is coming back?’  
  
Ianto wanted so hard to say that he was, that they weren’t now stuck with an idiot and a murderer for a Boss but couldn’t. Suddenly Owen was pushing him from behind, out to the door. At first he tried to protest but he knew it would do no good.  
  
Before he knew it he was out in the cold, Owen doing the lockup for him after ordering him to go get a life.   
  
The sky was dark and a distant rumbling warned of rain. Ianto supposed it was appropriate to his mood.   
  
Slowly, he walked along to where his car was parked and took shelter, just as the first few smatterings of rain hit the windshield. It was going to be a long night, since he couldn’t bear the thought of actually going back to his flat to face all the toys and the empty crib and the room he and Jack had finally painted up as a nursery.  
  
Sighing, Ianto contemplated the situation he was in, or rather not in, as he drove around aimlessly. The problem was that there was no real problem to work out. His child was dead and his lover was gone. He had a hand in both calamities and there really was nothing to work out or fix.   
  
Ianto snapped out of his thoughts, noticing that it was growing harder and harder to see through the windshield. He flicked on his wipers, annoyed and a bit cross now at the weather, forcing him to concentrate on the road more than he would have had to if it had been a pleasant evening.   
  
Ianto passed his street without turning down, noting as he saw his flat building disappear into the distance, his neighbours had left their lights on again. They were always doing that.   
  
With no other way to go except for forwards, he kept on driving until the bright lights of the city were fading away into the near non-existent country road lighting. Ianto had a strange notion of escape and realised it felt strangely good to pretend, at least for a little while, that he really could just drive off into the night, never to be seen again; that he could just cease to exist so easily. Despite the weather, a forbidden thrill went through him pushing his foot down heavy on the accelerator, taking the winding roads at a dangerous speed.  
  
When the early hours of the morning came, he had absolutely no clue where he was, and honestly didn’t care. He was just a man in a car, speeding around aimlessly in the darkness, not Ianto Jones, object of pity, prize idiot; the one who lost everyone he loved out of jealousy, like some poor imitation Othello.   
  
He kept going on, and on and on for hours, until the sound of horns beeping in his ear and the screech of brakes from a car swerving around him made him start and realise he was falling asleep at the wheel. Ianto took a deep breath and decided that perhaps it was time to stop and turn around; to stop pretending he could ever run away from what he had done. He was getting to the point where he knew he was a danger to others on the road, and that wasn’t fair.  
  
The last corner he took on his way to finding a lay-by to stop in, to calm down and figure out where he was, was totally misjudged, although he didn’t realise he had strayed onto the wrong side of the road until two enormous beams of light completely dazzled him and he lost control.   
  
He saw flashes of trees, glass shards and red amongst a haze of pain in the moments before it all went black.


	4. Chapter 4

Ianto woke up to a bright light shining right into his eyes and uncomfortable sensations in his arm. ‘Can you not do that please?’ His voice was raspy and tight and it didn't sound like his own.   
  
The light clicked off and Ianto was able to see his surroundings a bit better, seeing stark white walls and sheets – _hospital then_. There was a doctor in a lab coat and two nurses standing just to his right, syringes in their hands, each looking impatient.   
  
‘Do you know your name?’  
  
It took a moment for the question to register. ‘Yeah, my name’s Ianto Jones... Where...?’  
  
‘You're in St Catherine’s. You've been in a car accident. Can you sit up at all?’ Ianto attempted to sit up, one of the orderlies bringing him a cup of water as he heard the door to his room slide open and a familiar face step in.   
  
‘Torchwood. We're taking over here, thank you.’  
  
The doctor attending him immediately bristled and puffed up his chest. ‘Excuse me, but this is _my_ patient and you have no right...’  
  
‘Did you not hear me?’ Owen growled, getting right in his face. ‘I said, we’re Torchwood.’  
  
‘Is that a band of some kind?’ the doctor asked, slyly, prompting some muttering from Owen about how much he hated being out in the sticks. ‘I’m sorry, but if you don’t turn around and walk in the opposite direction, I’ll be forced call the police.’  
  
‘Ianto, tell this guy...’ Owen began.  
  
‘I’m sorry, do I know you?’ he asked, and gave him a mean smile.   
  
Owen glared at him for a moment before turning around and walking out in a huff.  
  
‘Sorry about that,’ Ianto said. ‘He’s an arse.’  
  
The doctor grinned. ‘Not amnesia then?’ he asked, with a chuckle. ‘Alright Ianto, you’re going to be fine. You had a slight knock to the head but I think we can safely rule out the possibility of concussion, since your pupils are fine and you seem cognitive. Mostly you just have scratches and bruises. But we did have to take you into surgery to repair the damage to your arm.’  
  
‘My arm?’ Ianto looked and found his right arm wrapped in bandages and fixed still in a metal frame. He felt mostly numb in the area but there was a slight soreness that said there had definitely been an injury.   
  
‘Yes, it caused quite a few problems when they were getting you out of your car. You nosedived right into a patch of woodland and hit a tree. The branches smashed your windscreen and one of them punctured your forearm all the way through. We’ve done our best but there was some muscle damage.’  
  
A large lump made its way down Ianto’s throat. ‘Muscle damage? How bad?’  
  
‘We won’t know the extent until we’re sure there’s no infection forming and can take off that frame. Since we had to pull the skin tight to repair the hole, you will experience impaired movement for a while and will require an extensive course of physiotherapy. We believe you will be able to use your arm and your hand as normal again, but it will take time. I’m sorry.’  
  
Instinctually, Ianto tried to flex his fingers and found it near impossible. He hoped it was just whatever drugs they had pumped him full of and not an indication of the permanent state of damage.   
  
The swinging doors opened again and the nurses both squeaked in surprise. ‘Right then, Ianto come on, we're transferring you back to Cardiff,’ Owen stalked back into the room, Gwen and Tosh behind him, the former carrying Owen's medikit.   
  
‘Do you have the facilities to move him right now? He is in a stable but precarious state at the moment and I have to disagree with your decision to move him anywhere,’ the attending doctor stepped in, trying to stop Owen from disconnecting the IV's from Ianto's arm.   
  
‘Yeah well. Look, as I said, we're Torchwood. I'm his doctor and we're taking him now.’ Owen nodded to Tosh who wheeled a small wheelchair through the door and over to Ianto's bed.   
  
Ianto glowered at the chair and at Tosh. ‘It's my arm that's hurt, not my legs. I can walk fine.’ He tried to stand but his legs wobbled and he had to clutch onto Gwen's arm.   
  
‘The medicine is going to make all of your muscles a bit weak right now,’ the doctor told him, inching closer as if he wanted to stop him from being taken. ‘You need close observation and a course of steadily administered antibiotics for at least three days so we can be absolutely sure there’s no infection to complicate matters.’ He turned to Owen and glared. ‘Moving him now is completely pointless.’  
  
‘I can do the antibiotics,’ Owen contested. ‘Trust me, mate, I know what I’m doing. And anything’s better than some poxy little country cottage hospital in the middle of nowhere.’  
  
It looked for a moment as if the doctor was about to thump Owen one. ‘Doctor, it’s alright,’ Ianto said, quickly, hoping to break it up. ‘I’ll go with them.’ He sat down in the wheelchair and let Toshiko wheel him out, making a point of asking the nurses to fetch his clothes and personal items, if he still had any that were in tact.   
  
‘Finally,’ said Owen, following along behind them and throwing glares back towards the attending doctor.   
  
‘Yeah, well, I just didn’t want you to shoot him, since that does seem to be your problem solving method of choice.’ Ianto really didn’t care that he’d obviously made Owen even more pissy than he had been when he arrived, or that Gwen and Toshiko looked really uncomfortable. If they were intent upon barging in and dragging him away from a perfectly good doctor in a perfectly good hospital, without so much as a word of worry as to his condition, despite the obvious fact that he was not feeling at his best, then he had every right to snap at them.   
  
One of the nurses handed over a small box of items and Owen signed Ianto out at the door. The big black SUV was waiting for them in the carpark and reminded him to ask about his own vehicle.  
  
‘My car?’ he asked, a note of hope in his voice.  
  
‘It’s a write-off, I’m afraid,’ Toshiko said as she took care to help him to his felt as Gwen took the wheelchair back to the hospital. ‘It’s how we knew you were here. CCTV showed you leaving the city so we tapped into the police coms to see if we could figure out where you’d gone.’   
  
‘Police coms?’  
  
‘I had a hunch. Sorry.’  
  
He was helped up into the front seat and strapped in by Gwen, carefully to as not to disturb the metal frame around his forearm. Owen got in next to him and the girls got in the back together.  
  
‘Why is it exactly you’re all the way out here?’ Owen snarked as they pulled away. ‘I told you to go home, not go throwing yourself off the side of a road out on the outskirts of nowhere.’  
  
‘Well, when you said, “go home Ianto”, I actually heard, “please, throw yourself off a road tonight and get injured” and I thought, “well, Owen surely knows what he's talking about”.’ Ianto's voice dripped with sarcasm.  
  
‘I wouldn't put it past you,’ Owen grumbled and sped up.  
  
Ianto glared irritably, ready to snap back at Owen but hissed in pain as Owen drove over a bump in the road, jarring his arm.   
  
‘Hey!’ Gwen yelled from the back as she was thrown against Tosh.  
  
‘Care to look where you're driving? Or do you get a perverse pleasure in causing me more pain?’  
  
‘I'm not the one who drove myself into a tree.’  
  
‘I thought you had gotten the grasp of sarcasm Owen.’  
  
There was a huffed sigh from Toshiko in the back seat. ‘Would you two please pack it in? It’s been nothing but arguments since...’ Realising what she was about to say, she quickly hushed up.   
  
‘Since what, Tosh?’ Ianto asked, a little cruelly, the pain and indignity of being taken out of hospital while he was still drugged up and in need of care making him pretty irritable. ‘Since we all betrayed Jack? Let our new boss here assassinate him and my... and then stood aside as he sacrificed himself to clear up our mess. Since he had enough of our shit and walked out?’ Looking in his wing mirror he could tell he’d hurt her feelings from her expression, but for once Ianto didn’t care.  
  
Suddenly the brakes of the SUV screeched and brought them to a halt. ‘One more fucking word and I’ll dump you in Cardiff General with enough Retcon in your system to put you in a fucking coma,’ Owen growled, eyes going manic.   
  
Not for the first time, Ianto wondered if he ever really knew Owen at all; there had been a time when they had come to be friends, and Owen had been a doting uncle to Arthur and a caring doctor towards him when he’d been going through his period of radiation sickness. Ianto honestly didn’t know when it had all gone wrong, but the insanity in Owen’s eyes told it him might never be alright again.   
  
‘Or would you prefer to hitchhike home? Don’t suppose you’d be able to thumb a ride with that knackered hand.’  
  
‘Owen,’ Gwen chastised, quietly, unable to take it anymore.  
  
‘Just get us home.’  
  
‘You're referring to the Hub as home now? Mate you really got to get out more. Maybe I should force you to take that leave.’  
  
‘You wouldn't have the balls,’ Ianto spat back, looking out the window to the inky dark landscape that was rushing by. ‘You'd be drowning in pizza boxes and Chinese take out within a week.’   
  
‘Yeah, but that’s all we'd be missing; a cleaner.’  
  
‘Owen!!’ Tosh smacked his arm as Ianto dug the nails of his good hand into the arm rest, his body tensing as he forced himself to remain silent.  
  
He angled his body to the side, half turning his back to him, and decided not to talk to him anymore. It was doing no good. Ianto’s arm was beginning to throb and his head felt like a giant had stomped on it. It seemed like life couldn’t get any worse. He was injured, he was alone, and nothing in his world could ever be right again.  
  
Not for the first time, Ianto found himself regretting his decision not to drink the Retcon cocktail he’d dallied with in that hotel, while elsewhere Jack had woken from the dead and left him forever. As much as he knew he deserved the punishment, sometimes he didn’t know if he had the strength to go on anymore. He’d lost Lisa, he’d lost Arthur, he’d lost Jack, in a way he’d lost his team and his purpose, and now his car was destroyed and he had nearly got himself killed.   
  
Ianto wasn’t a great believer in fate or destiny, but he couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps the universe was trying to tell him something.   
  
*  
  
‘Hello there.’  
  
Jack snapped out of the daze he had been in to see that it was Martha. He offered her a seat next to him on the bench overlooking one of the hundred odd playparks dotted around the area. The food vendor there undoubtedly served the best refreshments around, so in the long hours he spent waiting around to hear word of how his son’s latest “procedure” went, he often found himself drifting there to nap or think.  
  
‘You looked a million miles away.’  
  
‘Perhaps I was,’ he admitted, with a coy smile.  
  
‘Thinking of Earth then?’   
  
‘I was thinking about Arthur.’ He looked out across the playpark where dozens of kids of all different ages were dashing about, laughing, playing, having fun. ‘And I was thinking about the baby.’  
  
Even though he really wasn’t a baby anymore, Martha decided not to correct him. There was no point rubbing that in. Instead she gave him a bright, reassuring smile. ‘Junior will be out of the growth tank in a little while. The Doctor sent me to find you and bring you back to the medical facility.’  
  
Jack nodded but his eyes fell to the floor. It never got any easier, watching him through the transparent walls of the enclosure he was living in for his own protection, aching to hold him when he cried or reached out towards him and being unable to. It wasn’t right for a child to be growing up so fast, and even worse for it to be happening without any human contact. At the beginning of every week they aged him a little bit more, put him in a closed environment, watched to see if he got sick, and then just ended up taking him away yet again. Jack had been watching him through the glass for nearly two months now and every time he went to see the baby after they brought him back, to see him aged a little older again, he wanted to weep. It was nothing less than torture watching this happen.  
  
Martha could sense his discomfort and put her arm around his back, reassuringly. ‘This could be the last time, you know.’  
  
Jack shook his head sadly. He heaved a sigh and stood up, letting Martha's arm slip around his waist. Jack clung to her as they walked back to the hospital, her weight solid and something he could hold on to.   
  
‘How did the nurses sound? Hopeful?’  
  
‘Well, they do think the procedure went rather well, yes. In fact, I thought they were all talking rather excitedly but then, their voices hurt my ears a bit.’ Martha admitted as she shifted the camera she had brought with her.   
  
‘I also wanted to show you something else... You know I've been taking pictures for Ianto...?’ Martha smiled softly as they climbed into the lift.   
  
‘Ianto,’ Jack muttered and sighed again.  
  
‘I found the perfect album and started putting the pictures in. Want to see?’  
  
Although, truth be told, he wasn’t really in the mood, Martha had been so sweet and supportive throughout the whole thing, he didn’t have the heart to say no. Jack nodded and allowed her to lead him to the private room of the medical facility the TARDIS was parked inside, through to her room. She sat him down on the edge of her bed and picked up a red book, covered in what might have been some kind of leather but which seemed a little softer to the touch.   
  
‘Like it?’ Martha asked, showing it off.   
  
‘Very nice. Very... red.’  
  
She sat down beside him and put it on his knees, clearly taking great enjoyment in showing him what she had done. The first photo was of Jack unconscious on the operating table, the surgeons around him, followed closely by a similar picture but with the baby lifted out of him, anything too gory thankfully concealed by sheets. There were shots of the child just after birth, then in the incubator, and then several in groups charting each stage of his development. Jack watched the pages and found himself getting very involved, smiling at some of the memories they invoked, and laughing especially hard at one photograph of the child grinning after having a sneezing attack (he had giggled his head off because Jack and Martha had been laughing back at him). The big smile was particularly Arthur-like somehow, and that only made Jack smile more at the thought.  
  
‘What do you think?’   
  
‘Martha, it’s... fantastic. Ianto will love it.’ He grabbed her in a hug and just about managed to keep the tears from his eyes; his hormones were finally stabilising. ‘Thank you.’  
  
‘You’re welcome,’ she replied, with a little girlish giggle. ‘You know, I’m looking forwards to meeting Ianto.’  
  
‘Me too,’ a voice said from outside the door, and the Doctor poked his head inside the room. ‘I could have sworn I said, bring Jack to the enclosure room, not bring him to _your_ room.’  
  
‘It’s the surname Jones,’ Jack said with a leer, grabbing Martha around the waist and pulling her down on the bed, making her squeal, ‘it has an effect on me.’ The effect seemed to last only for as long as it took for Martha to grab a pillow and whack him with it, playfully.  
  
The Doctor rolled his eyes. ‘The nurses just rang to inform us that Junior has been put back in his enclosure.’  
  
That seemed to snap Jack out of it. As hard as he found it going there, Jack had made sure that each and every time when the kid woke up afterwards, he was there. There was a lingering worry in his mind that the baby wouldn’t know he was his father, since he couldn’t show him through touch or cuddles, so he at least tried to be there when he was most vulnerable.   
  
He sprang to his feet and helped Martha up. ‘We’d better hurry then.’  
  
*  
  
To say that Junior's enclosure was brightly coloured would be an understatement. A plush carpet that was incredibly soft to the touch ran the entire length of the room as various soft toys and blankets were scattered around the room in every colour under the sun. There was what looked like a large bean bag stuffed in one corner and a rocking chair in another. An amenity that Jack had to admit was rather helpful, was the small robot that would aid in the changing of nappies, feeding and holding the child. Since nobody could enter the enclosure, due to the child having no immune system anymore, it was a helpful thing to have on hand.  
  
Shucking his coat and his boots, Jack opened the door to the enclosure, his heart skipping a beat as his son sat in the middle of his enclosure, blinking in the bright light and dressed in a red and yellow pair of overalls. He looked a little bigger than before, and his dark curly hair a bit longer; probably around the age of one now.  
  
‘Oh, he's gorgeous,’ he heard Martha breathe, then the distinct shutter of her camera sounded out.  
  
‘Hey there,’ Jack said softly, one hand reaching out and tapping at the glass wall between to get his attention.   
  
‘You really need to name him you know,’ the Doctor commented as he moved over to sit on one of the chairs.  
  
‘Not without Yan,’ Jack insisted as he watched his son tilt his head at him, curiously. He sat down on the carpet, right next to the glass, and smiled as the boy crawled over to him to sit on the other side. ‘Hello there. How are you doing?’  
  
The kid put his fingers in his mouth and looked at him with wide eyes.   
  
‘Want to play a game? Do you?’ Jack said, in a higher voice than normal. ‘Come on, copy me.’ He put his hands on his head. ‘Copy me.’  
  
For a moment, it looked like the little boy would, but instead he just yawned. He watched Jack for a few moments before crawling away to a pile of cushions and toys and snuggling into them, sleepily.   
  
‘Must be tired,’ Jack muttered, a bit disappointed. He listened to one of the nurses telling the Doctor something and waited for a translation, wondering if it would be any new news. ‘Doc?’  
  
‘She just said, the procedure went fine again and they’ll keep an eye on him. Hopefully if this isn’t the last time, the time after will be.’   
  
Jack nodded, giving him a slight smile. ‘I should think you two will be wanting to get off and get travelling again as soon as possible.’  
  
‘Ahhh, nah,’ the Doctor admitted with a grin. ‘This has been a nice change of pace, actually. Bit of a holiday.’  
  
‘I second that,’ Martha agreed, with an emphasis that told Jack just how non-stop their travelling had been since she became the Doctor’s companion.   
  
‘It’s just a shame I couldn’t go back and pick your Ianto up to come join in, but like I said, we wouldn’t want the universe to implode!’  
  
They had discussed the possibility of going and picking up Ianto, to bring him to Garacoika, but he didn’t want to leave his kid for any length of time just to go persuade Ianto to come along for what might only be a few weeks - especially since he knew Ianto probably needed a cooling off period after what happened. In the end, he decided it was better to get all of this overwith and not to make Ianto go through the same agony having to watch their son grow up through a wall of glass.  
  
‘I know. It’s alright. I think things will work out better this way.’ Jack looked across at the little boy, now fast asleep on a cushion, and sighed. ‘I just can’t wait to take him home.’  
  
Martha patted him on the shoulder in reassurance. Then the Doctor came and sat by him, also lending his reassurance. Jack couldn’t help but smile at them both. They might have started off with a bit of a rocky relationship, with the Doctor so changed and not all that approving of his immortality problem, and Martha at first just not measuring up to Rose in his eyes, but now he wouldn’t have them any other way. If anything, he now felt even closer to them than he had with the previous Doctor and companion, and he knew he couldn’t have gone through any this without them.


	5. Chapter 5

Ianto stretched his hand again, grasping onto the small stress ball and trying to squeeze it repeatedly. Frustrated, his hand opened, not grasping onto the ball anymore and Ianto watched it plop onto the ground with a growing sense of irritation.   
  
‘You're not focusing,’ Owen responded idly, picking the ball back up and handing it over.  
  
‘I am focusing. It's only a bloody ball of sand.’  
  
‘That bloody ball of sand is what's going to get your hand back to normal so you can carry the coffee cups around.’ Owen smirked and leaned back in his chair, flipping through the newspaper.   
  
Ianto glowered and began again, this time not letting his mind wander to the case when he had tried to follow them, gun in hand and almost took off Gwen's head.   
  
Owen had relegated him back to off-duty after that, saying he was pushing himself too hard and needed a vacation. Ianto had growled and tried to go and make himself a cup of coffee but had dropped the damned thing and soaked his pant leg.   
  
He had grudgingly agreed on a four day rest before he had been back and been forced through more of the physiotherapy exercises that Owen had assured him were calibrated to strengthen his hand. He just felt like a bloody useless fool.  
  
The process of building up the muscle and allowing the tightened skin around the wound to loosen up gradually was a very slow and painful process, made far worse by the fact that it was his right hand. At first, it was entirely useless, and he couldn’t even move it without pain. That was getting a little better as the wound healed, but his hand still wouldn’t close properly and he still couldn’t control it much. This meant he couldn’t sign his name, type up reports properly or complete his archive duties in a satisfactory manner. He couldn’t carry coffee cups in it, and operating the machine itself was made that much harder being one handed. Ianto couldn’t drive because he couldn’t grip the wheel properly whilst changing gears, he couldn’t chop vegetables properly to cook so he had to eat microwave food, and worst of all, the most bitter pill to swallow, he couldn’t even relieve his tension properly with a little pre-work wank. The whole situation was intolerable.   
  
Owen was, of course, being a real shit about it too. In his heart of hearts Ianto knew he was being cruel to be kind but he hated it. He hated all of the physiotherapy sessions and the moans he received when he didn’t do something right. The constant nagging was awful, especially since just about every conversation they had seemed to degenerate into a slanging match. Ianto couldn’t forgive Owen for what happened, anymore than he could forgive himself, and Owen wasn’t the type to stand back in a fight. The result was endless arguing and point scoring which was wearing him down.   
  
The ball slipped out of his hand again and landed on the floor with a loud plop. Owen glared at him and Ianto pressed his eyes shut, biting down the urge to punch him with his good hand.   
  
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Owen sneered and picked up the ball, pushing it back in his hand and making him wince at the shot of pain that caused.   
  
‘I’m trying,’ Ianto replied through gritted teeth.  
  
‘Apparently not hard enough.’ Owen scowled and twirled his pen in his hand. ‘I know you like having the girls wait on you hand and foot, but show at least a bit of effort, yeah?’ Owen mocked, flipping through the reports below him and trying not to smirk as he could practically hear the steam coming from Ianto's ears at that.   
  
The bastard had been one of the most stubborn patients Owen had ever had, always trying to push himself into doing something he had no right attempting yet whilst whining about the treatments he was receiving non-stop. Owen was afraid that his next option would be to physically tie Ianto to a chair and doing the exercises for him.   
  
Owen timed Ianto, watching him out of the corner of his eye as the man went through his drills once more, his brow furrowed and sweat popping out as he concentrated as much as he could on what he was doing. Finally, with painstaking attention, Ianto finished, flopping back into his chair and breathing hard.   
  
‘Took you long enough.’ Owen muttered. Ianto flipped him off and stalked off into the other room; Owen just watched him go, just pleased that part of the day was over.  
  
Ianto kept on walking, through the Hub, and went down to the bathrooms. He locked himself in a cubicle and sat on the toilet, fighting to calm down. It didn’t do to have Gwen and Toshiko see him so stressed out, barely clinging onto the self control needed not to cry. He already knew they were talking about him all the time, muttering whenever he dropped a cup or scrapped some paper out of frustration. Being a private person, and not used to being the latest hot topic of conversation, it really grated on his nerves.   
  
He stayed there for a while, calming himself down, breathing through the pain in his arm. When he left the cubicle and took a look at himself in the mirror, he found a stranger staring back at him. He was having trouble shaving with his left hand, so he had cuts and patches of stubble where usually he would be perfectly clean shaven. His eyes and the swollen bags around them bore testimony to sleepless night after sleepless night because now Jack was gone from his bed, the old nightmares were back. Even his tie just wouldn’t straighten properly. He was a mess and he felt awful.   
  
The pain in his arm began to throb, so he searched in his pocket for some of his painkillers. Strictly speaking, he knew he wasn’t supposed to take any more for at least a few more hours, but they were the only thing keeping him sane, so he thought it probably wouldn’t do any harm to take a few extra. It hadn’t hurt him before. Quite the opposite in fact.  
  
Ianto had to force himself to leave the room and go back to work. Mostly because that it was a joke to say that he was actually doing work now. All he seemed to do was wander around, watching everybody else getting on with things, while he could barely tidy. He couldn’t even go out and be their backup in the field anymore; a fact he was reminded of as Toshiko was busy relaying a tip they had received to the others and they were preparing to go out. Without him of course.   
  
Ianto sighed and returned to the coffee machine, determined to make it work for him.  
  
*  
  
‘What about this one?’  
  
‘Are you serious?’  
  
‘What? What's wrong with it?’  
  
‘It looks like a clown, and its screaming.’  
  
The Doctor turned the clown over and looked at him. ‘I thought he looked ...fun.’  
  
‘He looks frightening!’  
  
‘Do you have some sort of a clown problem Martha?’  
  
‘No, just... he's scary. Put him back.’ Martha insisted as they continued through the toy store, searching for the right toy to get for Junior as a gift, for when he got out of containment.  
  
Martha was worried for Jack. Well, more than she had been before. It was growing close to three months now and Jack still had been unable to hold his son. The Doctor could sense his restlessness and even he could see the pained look in Jack's eyes as he looked into the enclosure, one hand on the glass separating them, watching his son grow older in front of him.   
  
‘Do you think this will be the last growing up session?’ she asked, picking up a large red horse from the shelf.  
  
‘I hope so - don't know if I could take much more of Jack if it's not.’  
  
‘I know what you mean. But post natal depression is a natural response, especially given the circumstances. And he does seem to be missing Ianto. He keeps flipping through that photo album I’ve been making and sighing.’   
  
The Doctor’s attention was suddenly caught by a large ball with handles on the top down the end of the aisle. He ran up and took a seat, bouncing on it like it was a space hopper. Martha chuckled as she came towards him. ‘Ah, don’t you think that’s a bit big for the kid?’  
  
‘For the kid?’   
  
She rolled her eyes and pulled him off it. ‘Come on, what are we going to get? There’s too much to choose from.’  
  
‘And this is one of the smaller toy stores.’ The Doctor pushed her along into the next aisle down, where all the toys seemed to be designed with taste in mind. So they licked a few of the tester toys to see which ones were best, even though Martha didn’t really think those particular items were a good idea for a gift, for hygiene reasons alone.   
  
‘Nothing too alien, Doctor. He’s got to take it back home with him, remember?’ she reminded him for the fifth time as he picked up the base of a whizzing, fizzing light-based toy.   
  
The Doctor put down the toy and turned to Martha. ‘He's a Torchwood baby. He has two fathers, one of which was actually his birth “mother”. He was dead but was brought back to life via alien technology and then fast forwarded through almost two years of his childhood to flush out any remaining radiation. I think a laser toy is way down on the list of weird things this kid has.’  
  
Martha glared but conceded that the Doctor may have had a point there. ‘But still, we want him to be able to have him take it to the park or something...’ Martha sulked as the Doctor shouted and ran towards a large globule type thing.  
  
‘Oh this will be perfect.’  
  
‘What is it?’  
  
‘It's a mood reading beanie. It changes colours and emits sounds to match moods... So when he's tired it's very soothing and when he wants to play war with it ...’ The Doctor demonstrated it for her.  
  
Martha giggled and clapped her hands. ‘Perfect!’ She took the toy in her hands and smiled as it turned a yellow. ‘What does yellow mean?’  
  
‘You’re feeling happy.’  
  
‘Uncanny!’ she said, a little sarcastically. ‘Okay, that’s the gift sorted. Think we should hide it in the TARDIS until Junior is let out of his enclosure? I want to give it as a sort of congratulations type of gift.’  
  
The Doctor nodded and raced her to the checkout. Fortunately, as guests from another world, they didn’t actually have to pay for anything, much less toys, so it was a case of jumping queue and leaving. They exited the store with the toy shining so brightly it was dazzling; that only made them both feel happier.   
  
Together they walked the few streets back to the medical facility and made a quick stop to the TARDIS to stash the gift. Then they went along to the room with the kid’s enclosure in it.   
  
Jack turned to them as they entered and looked extremely relieved. It seemed he had been trying to talk to a nurse, and having little success with the language. He practically grabbed the Doctor and hauled him over towards her. ‘She’s trying to tell me something. I think it’s about his next session in the growth tank, since he’s due to go in soon. What’s she saying?’  
  
Patiently the Doctor listened and then fixed Jack with a beaming grin. ‘You won’t believe this.’  
  
‘What?’ He looked more disturbed than excited.  
  
‘Really, you won’t believe this!’  
  
‘What?!’  
  
Slowly he turned his head towards the little boy through the glass. ‘It’s gone. The radiation has completely dissipated. His immune system is back up. He’s not getting sick this time. Jack... he’s okay.’  
  
It seemed to take a moment to register with Jack, but when he did, he looked like he might faint. ‘Are you serious?’  
  
The mirth in the Doctor’s eyes served as an adequate reply.  
  
‘Oh my God!’ Martha screeched and grabbed Jack.   
  
‘Holy shit!’ he gasped, realisation kicking in. He twirled her round and kissed her hard enough to make her blush. Then he did the same to the nurse. The Doctor let him hug but stopped him from giving him a kiss, only to laugh and kiss him instead.   
  
‘Can I...?’ Jack gestured to the enclosure where his son was toddling around on his own. ‘Can I go see him?’ The nurse looked to the Doctor, who explained what Jack wanted, and she smiled brightly and nodded.  
  
Jack removed his coat and his boots, blinking when he saw a door grow into the previously solid glass. Martha squealed and made to follow but the Doctor held her shoulder, nodding at Jack. ‘Let him meet his son for the first time. Give him a few moments.’ Martha nodded but didn't leave, watching the two from the outside glass.  
  
Jack slowly sank down on the plush carpeting, his son watching him with wary but curious eyes. ‘Hi there,’ Jack said softly, wanting to reach for and hold his son so badly. ‘I know you don't really know me, but I've been watching you from over there every day.’ Jack pointed to the window.   
  
Junior moved closer, sitting down across from Jack but still far enough away from him to be cautious. ‘I'm your daddy,’ Jack told him, smiling widely, his son copying and smiling back. ‘Your daddy? I don't suppose you know that word do you?’ His son blinked and stuck a few fingers in his mouth.  
  
Jack scooched closer. ‘Well, I'm one of your daddies. You're lucky, you have two of them. There's me, daddy Jack, and then there's your other dad, daddy Ianto. He can't be here right now but I know he will love you very very much.’ Jack held his breath as his son moved a bit closer to him.   
  
‘And over there, that's Aunt Martha and Uncle... Doctor I guess.’ Jack looked back at them and then returned his gaze to his son. ‘We have been very worried about you, you know.’ His son looked at him again and smiled blindingly; it was a huge grin that instantly reminded Jack of happiness and his home with Ianto.   
  
Before he knew it, Jack had a lapful of toddler, little chubby arms around his neck, the child bouncing in his lap and babbling. Jack couldn't help but feel a small prick of tears and fought to keep them back. He gave into his impulse to cry and held the kid tightly, breathing him in, kissing the top of his head. It felt like he’d been sitting in a prison cell for months and was finally being let out. The swell of pride and emotion in his chest completely took his breath away.  
  
Jack looked back over to Martha and the Doctor. They were standing arm in arm, sheer delight on their faces. He returned it in kind and beckoned them closer. They each sat down on the soft velvety floor nearby and Jack turned his son around in his arms. ‘Look who it is, it’s Aunt Martha and Uncle Doc. Say hello.’ He held his little hand and moved it so he was waving.  
  
The Doctor and Martha waved back with a shared chuckle, and Martha took the opportunity to take a quick shot with the camera that was always hanging around her neck lately.   
  
Then the toddler wriggled out of his lap and crawled over to Martha, quizzically. ‘Hello there,’ she said, offering her hand comically as if he would be able to shake it. ‘I’m your Aunt Martha. It’s very nice to be able to meet you properly like this.’ She stroked her hand through his dark, curly hair and then laughed as he tried to reach for her camera. ‘Like this? It’s a camera,’ she told him, taking it off for him to hold.   
  
With some curious looks, the little boy turned it around in his hands, looking at the lens, accidentally putting a hand on the button and taking one of himself. The flash seemed to startle him and he dropped it, warily.  
  
‘It’s okay. You’re fine.’ Martha picked it up and took another one of him. ‘See?’  
  
The kid blinked at her for a few seconds and then turned his attention to the Doctor. He crawled over to him, putting his little hands on his knee, looking up at him curiously.   
  
‘Uh, hi there,’ the Doctor said, looking a little awkward, apparently not really sure what to do.   
  
Jack smiled at his uncertainty. He watched as the Doctor warily picked up his son, setting him in his lap and bouncing him gently, then smiling when the boy squealed and clapped his hands and reached up to play with his ears.   
  
‘I think he likes you Doc,’ Jack chuckled and carefully took back his son, saving the Doctor from more ear-abuse. He cuddled the boy in his arms as he got to his feet.   
  
Amazingly, the child calmed, resting back in Jack's arms and against his body as he yawned. ‘Seems like someone’s tired.’ Jack moved back to the large bean bag type thing in the back and sat down, his child cradled in his lap, slowly settling down, sleepily.   
  
‘Meeting new people, always a tiresome activity,’ Martha said fondly.  
  
Jack hummed and stroked his hair as the boy sucked on his fingers, deciding to remain with his son during his nap. In fact, he was determined never to leave the little boy alone again if he could possibly help it. The child was a miracle, no more no less, and Jack knew that he would never forget to celebrate that every day of the rest of their lives together; him, Ianto and the son they nearly lost.   
  
*  
  
The child which Jack carried on his shoulders to his favourite park looked very different than he had in his enclosure. He’d had a much needed haircut and was now wearing new, better fitting clothes and shoes which Jack had picked out himself. Everyone in the hospital had been pleased to see the child out of containment finally, and there had been a string of nurses eager to hold him and play with him, laughing and cooing in their strange way. The doctors did lots of tests and, aside from a short rest to be had before leaving, they were cleared to leave Garacoika.   
  
Jack decided to use the time before departure to take Junior to the park and see if he couldn’t help the little tyke to master walking. As useful as the robot in his enclosure had been, it hadn’t been programmed to assist with the basic developmental steps of a human baby, and Jack was concerned that his speech and motion might be affected.   
  
So he carried him there and sat down under a tree at the edge of the playpark, helping the kid onto his feet and trying to get him to walk on them. He had succeeded in getting him to at least stand and try to take a step when Martha and the Doctor appeared in his peripheral vision, coming to join him under the tree.   
  
‘Time to go already, Doctor?’ he asked, a bit surprised.  
  
The Doctor shook his head and looked to Martha. She revealed a bag she had been holding behind her back. ‘We have a few more things to do. First, the album.’ She pulled it out of the bag. ‘We need a final picture to put in it.’ Martha put the bag aside and handed her camera to one of the children playing nearby to take a photo of them.  
  
She and the Doctor sat down either side of Jack and the kid and they posed for a shot. It took a moment for Martha to fiddle with its buttons and get the photograph printed out. Then she opened the album and pressed it in as the final photograph.  
  
Jack peered closely at it, and for a second, his breath caught in his chest.  
  
‘What?’ Martha asked, noticing.  
  
‘Nothing it’s just... he looks so much like his brother in that picture, it’s untrue.’ The pose and the smile seemed exactly the same as Arthur in the one he and Ianto had on their mantelpiece, of Arthur sitting on Ianto’s lap in the teacup ride, clutching his dragon toy, smiling for all he was worth. The resemblance really was amazing. Of course, he’d noticed before that, even though this child was younger than Arthur had been. The brotherly similarities were really coming through now, but it was just that pose and grin which took him by surprise.   
  
Martha smiled and put the album aside. ‘We have something else for you.’ She accepted the bag as it was passed over by the Doctor.  
  
‘Spent hours in the toy store, looking for this,’ he said, the enjoyment he’d found in that showing through in his voice.  
  
Martha pulled the toy out of the bag and held it up. It was currently shining a redish colour. ‘It's a mood-beanie and it changes colours depending on your mood...’  
  
‘DRAIG!!’ The toddler in Jack's lap leapt up and reached out his arms, making noises as he tried to reach for the toy.   
  
Jack blinked his eyes, turning to stare at his son as the boy continued to cry for the toy. ‘What the...?’  
  
Confused as well, Martha handed the toy over to the child who held it close. ‘Draig!’ The boy hugged it before turning it over in his hands. His elated smile soon began to slide a bit as he looked the toy over closely, seeing it turning a yellow colour. He soon tossed it onto the ground. ‘No Draig!’ he whined and pouted at Jack.  
  
The Doctor and Martha looked to Jack for explanation but he was apparently stunned silent.   
  
Jack stared into the face of the child in his lap, frozen in place. It couldn’t be... there was no way... it was _impossible_...   
  
His voice caught in his chest as he looked the child right in the eyes, holding him in place by the arms, hardly daring to speak yet knowing he had to. He had to know. It shouldn’t be at all possible but... he had to know. ‘Arthur?’ he asked, quietly.  
  
There was a pause, and then...  
  
‘Daddy?’


	6. Chapter 6

Jack relaxed in one of the seats in the console room, a large bag of toys and clothes at his feet as he bounced his son, Arthur on his legs. ‘I still can't believe it, I mean, I know you explained the whole counsellor device as a gene sequencer and predictor but...’ Jack looked back down at his son and was unable to believe that it was his son.   
  
‘Impressive technology, huh?’ the Doctor chuckled.  
  
Arthur giggled and clung on to his father’s neck. ‘Daddy!’ He bounced on Jack's lap as he grew excited. ‘Daddy Yan 'day?’  
  
Jack nodded and straightened Arthur's outfit. ‘Yes we’ll go see him, and he will be so excited to see us!’  
  
‘Draig?’  
  
That made him smile. ‘Yes, Draig will be there too... I hope.’   
  
The Doctor swung Arthur out of Jack’s arms and whizzed him around in air, making the little boy giggle in excitement. ‘I’m just sorry I didn’t translate their language properly earlier, only it’s been a while.’ He hugged Arthur to his chest and Jack couldn’t help but laugh at how quickly the Time Lord had got over his discomfort of dealing with a two year old, even though he was always saying that he didn’t do families anymore.   
  
‘I’m sorry,’ Martha said, one hand rubbing her forehead, ‘I’m still not following how this worked. I mean... this kid is the same as the kid you had before, how...?’  
  
‘Simple,’ the Doctor enthused. ‘Well, not _that_ simple. _Interesting_ – yes that’s the word. The radiation energy from the original Arthur blueprint which that device created, by mixing their DNA, automatically infused into the both of them after the kid was gone. Why? Because the programme read that it had been successful. So that radiation energy matrix stayed with them in a dormant fashion because it figured they were going to want to reproduce and have the kid it forecasted for real. So, hey presto, the two of them mixed that energy again when they got pregnant, and so it has recreated the exact same kid, only from scratch this time. Memories and everything! All transplanted and intact! Fantastic!’  
  
‘So that’s how he remembers his dragon toy thing?’ Martha said, slowly, clearly still trying to get her mind around it. ‘The original Arthur has been, what, recreated?’  
  
‘Exactly the same. Right down to his little nose.’ The Doctor pretended to steal his nose and Arthur laughed even more, waving his arms around in an attempt to retrieve it. ‘And this one won’t burst into energy at any point; he’s pure flesh and blood. Human as human can be.’  
  
Jack reclaimed his child from the Doctor’s arms. ‘You know, both me and Ianto have been hearing this giggle in our minds since Arthur disappeared,’ he said, tickling the kid’s tummy to produce the sound in question. ‘Looks like he really was never gone.’  
  
‘Absolutely. And that energy has been protecting him too. Even when you died, something sparked it and brought him back to life and helped him carry on growing.’ The Doctor clapped his hands, happily. ‘I told you the Garacoikan were the best creators of reproductive aids this side of the galaxy.’  
  
‘Can’t argue with that,’ Jack agreed. He held onto his son as memories of the last time those eyes and that smile looked up at him flashed through his mind. ‘Ianto is... Well, I think he might faint,’ Jack said softly, one hand brushing the hair from Arthur's forehead. ‘Ianto got really close to Arthur... the first time. I uhh, I was a bit more sceptical of the device and our son. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. But Ianto, he took to fatherhood as if he was born for it.’  
  
Jack kissed Arthur and fiddled with his braces, grinning at how Martha had managed to find an outfit for Arthur that was very similar to his own clothes – braces included. ‘I think it hit him the hardest when Arthur disappeared... Losing him so soon after losing Lisa.’  
  
Martha came and sat down along side Jack, smiling when Arthur clambered over to see her. ‘I can't wait to meet him and see his reaction either.’ Martha smiled and kissed Jack's cheek.  
  
With a slight shake, the TARDIS landed.  
  
*  
  
Tosh looked up towards the small kitchenette, worriedly, watching Ianto absently operating the coffee machine like a zombie pushing buttons. ‘Owen,’ she started, fiddling with her pen.   
  
‘I know Tosh, but I'm not sure.’  
  
‘The symptoms?’  
  
‘Yeah, the symptoms fit what I'm thinking...’  
  
‘Which is?’  
  
‘You don't want to know Tosh.’  
  
She fixed him with a hard stare. ‘I do. I need to know what’s wrong with him.’ The Ianto they knew had been fading before their eyes and she couldn’t get through to him at all. It hurt, since there had been a time when they were very close friends; practically family even.  
  
Owen snorted. ‘Lately, or...?’  
  
‘Please.’  
  
He sighed. ‘Alright. Imagine my surprise to discover that we’re actually ordering four times the number of vicodin painkillers I thought we ordered, and that _I_ was the one supposedly signing the paperwork. Nice forgery job actually. He didn’t pick _that_ up in Torchwood One training. Anyway, it all makes sense. He’s doing his physio without a word of complaint. He doesn’t talk back anymore. Just sort of wanders.’  
  
Tosh nodded and glanced back up just to be sure he was still at the coffee machine. ‘I noticed that. Gwen thought he must just be depressed.’  
  
‘At first that’s what I thought. But there’s obviously more to it than that. Did you notice the little rash on his neck? It’s a classic tell-tale sign.’  
  
‘Of what?’  
  
‘Overdose. He’s obviously popping the painkillers. Little shit, I thought I’d told him to stop taking them weeks ago. I’m only surprised it took me so long to figure it out.’  
  
The look on Toshiko’s face would have been comical to Owen if it weren’t such a serious matter. ‘What do we do?’  
  
‘Well... that’s the question, ain’t it?’ He chewed on the end of his pen, thoughtfully. ‘We’re going to have to do an intervention. You know, try to convince him to kick the habit or...’  
  
‘Or what?’ she asked, hurriedly through deep concern.  
  
‘Or lock him in a room and let him detox. Although that might be a bit tricky since vicodin is one of the hardest ones to kick if used improperly.’ Owen chuckled, humourlessly. ‘Of all the people I expected to do this... I thought Ianto was smarter. But uh, don’t ever tell him I said that, ‘kay?’  
  
Tosh nodded slowly, looking up to where Ianto was using both hands as if it wasn't even a problem. ‘Could we replace them with placebos or something?’ Tosh racked her brain with suitable options other than detox, not wanting to put Ianto through that.   
  
‘Not for vicodin, he'd realise pretty much instantly.’ Tosh frowned as they heard Ianto on the stairs.  
  
‘What are we going to do?’  
  
‘Nothing yet...’  
  
Tosh nodded and took the cup of coffee from Ianto, not looking him in the eyes, not wanting to see the cloud of painkillers in them.   
  
Suddenly, there was a distant sound and a gust of wind through the Hub which disturbed some of Toshiko’s papers. Gwen suddenly leapt towards them from her desk, accidentally shoving Ianto aside in her hurry and making him drop the coffee he was carrying. ‘Sorry,’ she gasped, quickly, before continuing on. ‘That’s it... that’s the sound I heard before... when Jack left!’  
  
Owen and Toshiko exchanged wide eyed glances and Gwen leaned over to pull up the CCTV footage of the Plass. It was fuzzy.   
  
Quick as a flash, Toshiko was working to clear it up. Though still a little hazy, they could just about make out a blue police box standing under the shadow of the water tower, on top of their lift. The door opened and a familiar figure stepped out.  
  
‘Oh my God...’ Tosh gasped. ‘He’s back. Jack’s back!’   
  
*  
  
Jack outstretched his arms and breathed in the air, ecstatically. ‘Oh Cardiff, how I’ve missed you!’  
  
‘Bet that’s the first time anyone’s ever said that!’ Martha chuckled, carrying Arthur out into the daylight.   
  
‘Well, not Cardiff, I suppose. The people in it.’ He looked up towards the camera he knew the team would now be watching him through, grinning and waving with a flourish before turning back to the Doctor. ‘So, how close are we to when we left?’  
  
‘Oh, about two and a half months. Not too bad.’ The Doctor locked the door of the TARDIS behind him and went to stand beside Martha. ‘So this Torchwood branch of yours... they’re uh, they’re not going to capture me and try to poke out my brains...?’  
  
‘Honestly Doctor, like I said, I built this one from scratch. I built it in a completely different way to Torchwood One, mostly to take it over some day. Sure, that you’re the enemy might be in the charter, but I think you’ll find that’s not exactly adhered to much in these parts.’  
  
The Doctor nodded, slyly, swaying a little on his heels. ‘Just checking.’  
  
*  
  
Gwen squealed and flew past Tosh and Owen who were quick on her heels as they headed up to the tourist centre. Jack was back in Cardiff and none of them could believe it.  
  
Ianto slowly got down onto his knee and began to pick up the shards of broken crockery, sighing and mentally berating himself for taking too many pills again and causing hallucinations. The team had already become a bit suspicious over the last time he had hallucinated Jack's return and barely covered himself by pretending he had been joining in with their conversation somehow.   
  
Sighing, Ianto rose to his feet to go and retrieve a mop and bucket for the spilled coffee, and a box for the shards of pottery.   
  
*  
  
‘Jack!’ Tosh cried, running forward and into his arms as soon as she had made it to the Plass.   
  
‘Tosh!’ Jack cried back, picking her up and spinning her around. ‘And look who I brought back with me,’ Jack moved to introduce everyone to his team. ‘This is the Doctor and his companion Martha. And this...’  
  
Tosh gasped. ‘Is that...?’  
  
‘Holy shit...!’ Owen said.  
  
‘Language!’ Martha chastised him, putting her hand over Arthur’s ear and pressing him against her shoulder, instinctively.   
  
‘It’s kind of a long story.’  
  
Slowly, Toshiko approached the kid balanced on Martha’s hip, her face filled with wonder. ‘I don’t believe it... it can’t be...’  
  
‘Say hello, Arthur,’ Jack told the little boy.  
  
He assessed Toshiko through slightly narrowed eyes. Then a light came on and he grinned. ‘Tosshhhhh!’   
  
Martha handed him over and Tosh held the little boy like the most precious thing in the world, a tear or two escaping her eyes.  
  
Gwen threw her arms around Jack. ‘I’m so pleased you’re back. I knew you’d come.’  
  
‘Couldn’t stay away.’  
  
His attention turned to Owen and they exchanged an uncomfortable look. Jack could tell the mutiny and shooting him dead was still prevalent on his mind. He stepped towards him, arms folded across his chest, frowning a little.   
  
‘Jack, I...’ Owen began, his eyes beginning to shine for unshed tears.  
  
‘Don’t. Owen... I won’t forget what you did,’ he said, and then softened his stance. ‘But I can forgive, all things considered.’ Jack grabbed him in a loose hug and absorbed the few tears Owen shed into his shoulder before turning away and trying to wipe them away, covertly. ‘Now then, let’s go to the Hub.’  
  
*  
  
Ianto watched the images on the screen with a giddy smile on his face. He really was cracking up.   
  
Now he was hallucinating not only Jack, but Arthur as well, along with the Doctor - which made a kind of sense - and Adeola, Lisa’s best friend from Torchwood One; another deceased convert to the Cybermen cause.  
  
He blinked the images away and picked up the box of broken mug pieces and threw them away. Then he picked up his mop and bucket to put them away. Ianto supposed he should really make more coffee, since Gwen had knocked over what he had made.   
  
Or maybe he’d just dropped them. For a moment he wasn’t sure.  
  
No, it was definitely her. So he had to make more. It was stupid to have taken too many pills again, and on some level he knew that, but some days it was the only way he could make himself get out of bed.   
  
*  
  
Jack entered the Tourists’ Office first with Arthur in his arms. He was closely followed by Gwen and Toshiko, then Martha and the Doctor, and last of all a moping Owen. He was disappointed Ianto wasn’t there, at his desk, but only for as long as it took him to press the button to open up the secret passage.  
  
Toshiko was trying to say something, twittering something about Ianto, but he wasn’t really listening. He was just too excited and nervous. After months of lying awake, wishing Ianto was with him, he was finally going to get to see him again.  
  
*  
  
Ianto continued to make coffee as he heard the hub door open and shut, along with the cackle of voices. He frowned and tried to block them out a he continued to make the coffee. Normally the hallucinations didn't come with their own soundtrack as well.   
  
He'd have to be more careful with the pills next time.   
  
*  
  
‘Well, where is he?’ Jack bounced around, looking for his lover as he cradled Arthur on his hip. ‘Ianto! Ianto, where are you?’ Jack even went over to Tosh's computer to pull up CCTV on the archives to see if his lover was there.   
  
‘Listen Jack, Owen and I were just talking earlier about Ianto and...’  
  
‘One moment, Yan where are you?’  
  
‘Yan!’ Arthur added, helping his father call for his wayward dad.   
  
Jack smiled beatifically at his son before he saw movement out of the corner of his eyes. ‘Ianto! There you are, I was wondering...’ Jack spun around but stopped mid sentence. The Ianto in front of them was not the one he had left.   
  
There was no intelligent smirk or arched eyebrows, no smart suit and impeccable exterior. This Ianto was worryingly thin, his face gaunt and with dark rings under his eyes. His eyes were bloodshot, his face unshaven and his crumpled suit hanging off his body badly.   
  
‘Ianto?’   
  
There was a pause, and Ianto looked at him, but it only lasted a short moment before he continued placing cups of coffee on desks and clearing away the empty mugs.   
  
‘Ianto, it’s me. It’s Jack,’ he tried. ‘Ianto!’ He grabbed him with his free hand and pulled him closer.  
  
Ianto looked startled and then his passive expression returned. ‘No you aren’t,’ he said at a whisper.   
  
‘Who am I then?’ When no response came, he pulled him closer, abruptly with his free hand. ‘Ianto?!’  
  
Arthur reached over and touched Ianto on the shoulder. That really seemed to shake him and he pulled back sharply like he’d been burned, tripping over bag of rubbish to hit the floor. ‘You’re not real,’ he yelled. ‘You’re in my head! Leave me alone!’  
  
Martha immediately rushed to his side and tried to help him to his feet. But Ianto pushed her away. ‘ _And_ you Ade! Just... go away.’  
  
As he tried to run off, Owen caught him and slapped him around the face. When he stopped, stunned, the doctor tipped his head back a little and looked in his eyes. ‘Fuck, Ianto, how many of those things did you take today?’  
  
‘What things?’ Jack asked, frantically. Arthur was starting to cry so he passed him over to Toshiko before going back over to Ianto. ‘Owen, what the hell’s going on? What’s wrong with him?’  
  
‘I didn’t know it had got this bad,’ Owen muttered and seemed to mentally kick himself. ‘Why didn’t I notice this sooner?’  
  
‘Sorry Owen,’ Ianto said, inanely. He at least knew that Owen was real and not some figment of his imagination. ‘I think I need to lie down.’  
  
Jack looked between the two of them and then back at the others, watching the scene with obvious amazement. He watched as Owen helped Ianto to lie down on the nearby couch; watched as a shadow of the man he knew curled up on the cot-like bed, expression disturbed. ‘Owen, you need to tell me what's going on, right now.’ Jack knew Ianto wasn't going to take his feelings towards Jack and his leaving well, but this wasn't something that he expected to happen.   
  
‘Ianto... He's not really been himself lately.’  
  
‘I can see that, what's going on?’   
  
‘Ianto, he...’  
  
‘He's overdosing on painkillers.’ Tosh spoke up from the back, flushing when everyone turned to stare at her. ‘He's probably been doing it for the past month or so...’ she estimated, ‘ever since...’  
  
‘What? How did he _get_ painkillers?’ Jack scoffed.   
  
‘He was in a car accident...’ she continued.  
  
‘Which was his fault...’  
  
‘Shut up Owen! He went off the road, hit a tree and a branch went through his arm... had to have surgery done. He's not been the same since.’  
  
Martha passed Arthur over to the Doctor and went to kneel down beside Ianto, instinctively checking his pulse and eyes. Owen bristled a bit at her taking over but said nothing.   
  
‘Well... well why didn’t you stop him?’ Jack demanded of them all.  
  
‘Didn’t know for sure until this morning when I looked at the inventories. Besides,’ Owen shrugged, ‘he’s good at hiding stuff.’  
  
Gwen stepped forwards, looking completely horrified. ‘I had no idea... poor Ianto... I just thought he was depressed. You know, being alone and all...’ She realised what she had said when she saw the pain flare in Jack’s eyes.  
  
‘I didn’t mean to be gone so long,’ Jack muttered, sadly, and took hold of Ianto’s hand.   
  
Ianto turned his head to him, eyes filled with confusion. It made Jack’s heart want to weep.   
  
‘Okay,’ he yelled, ‘everybody, get out. All of you. Give us some time alone.’ When they didn’t move, he glared at them all. ‘Get out of here!’  
  
Toshiko drew Martha back, and Gwen pulled Owen away. The Doctor remained, watching them, bouncing Arthur up and down on his hip.  
  
‘You too Doctor,’ Jack said. ‘Not for long, I just... I need to speak to him alone.’  
  
‘Sure.’ The Time Lord muttered something to Arthur and carried him away, leaving Jack and Ianto alone.  
  
‘Oh Ianto, what have I done to you?’ he sighed to himself.  
  
‘It’s alright, Jack. Honestly. I understand why you left,’ Ianto said, softly, smiling in an almost content manner. ‘I hurt you too much. I got you killed. I got our baby killed. I understand why you didn’t want to stay with me. I understand why you don’t want to come back. It’s okay.’  
  
‘But I am back. I am.’  
  
Ianto shook his head. ‘No you’re not. You’re not coming back.’  
  
‘I promise you, I _am_ back.’ Jack leaned over and kissed him, trying to convince him that way. ‘You gotta believe me. I would never leave you. Not permanently.’ Jack tried again but the man just remained passive in the kiss, just laying back on the bed and letting Jack do whatever he wanted. ‘Ianto, snap out of this come on,’ Jack growled softly. ‘Now listen to me. I left to get some answers from the Doctor. I got those and a whole lot more.’   
  
The thin shadow of his lover was watching him but Jack had no idea if he was really paying attention or not.   
  
‘And I have someone who has been waiting so long to meet you again, you really need to believe me... I am back, for real and you won't believe who came with me...’  
  
Jack softly brushed Ianto's cheek, watching his eyes fluttering softly. But all too soon Ianto’s eyelids closed and he passed out. Sighing, Jack checked his temperature and breathing. When both seemed fine, he lifted him into his arms and carried him to his office, slinging him over his shoulder to take him down into his private bedroom. Once there, he shucked his coat and boots and curled up with his lover, arms around him and holding him close like he hadn't been able to in so long, his heart feeling like it was going to fail for the pain of seeing him like this.


	7. Chapter 7

Ianto woke up with a start, feeling incredibly hot yet incredibly cold at the same time. His first thought was that he had to take some pills; stop the pain creeping up on him.   
  
Something was holding him still.   
  
He had to fight to pull away and when he turned to see what it was, he stopped breathing for a moment. ‘Jack?’  
  
‘You’re awake.’  
  
‘I didn’t realise I was asleep.’ He looked around, surprised to find himself in Jack’s private bedroom under his office.  
  
‘Well, you only lasted an hour. Then you started having nightmares.’  
  
Ianto frowned, putting one hand on his throbbing head. That action just made his arm hurt. His hand went to his pocket, but he couldn’t feel his pills in them.   
  
‘Oh, I took those out,’ Jack said, with a shrug. ‘I’ll give them back later. Once we’ve had a chat.’  
  
Slowly, Ianto looked to him, questioning in his eyes. ‘Jack? Is it... is it you? Really?’  
  
‘You seem a little more lucid than you were earlier.’ His eyes were narrowed, and something like suppressed anger seemed to be in them. ‘You’ve changed since I’ve been gone. I don’t think the prisoner of war look really suits you.’  
  
He looked down at himself, still a bit confused and finding it hard to think. It had been a while since he’d really had to bother; everything was so much easier in the grey numb haze that had become his refuge. ‘I uh... Am I still dreaming?’  
  
‘For the last time, no.’  
  
Ianto reached over and touched him on the arm, hesitantly. When he did he recoiled and slid to the end of the bed, covering his face with his hand, looking a little ashamed.   
  
That broke Jack a little and he crawled over to sit behind him, one leg either side of him, holding him around his far too thin stomach. ‘You really thought I wasn’t coming back? How could you think that? If I’d have had my way, I would have been back before you knew I was gone but a lot was happening and I couldn’t. But Ianto, I’m back now and I’m here to stay. And you, you need to stop taking those pills, okay?’  
  
‘I need them... for my arm. It still hurts.’  
  
Jack pulled down his sleeve to see. He traced his fingers over the scarred and sore flesh, sadly. Then he reached into his pocket and handed Ianto his pills, watching with badly disguised distaste as he gulped them down, too eagerly.  
  
‘Alright, now, there’s someone I need you to see,’ he said. ‘You won’t believe what happened...’ Jack frowned, sensing Ianto wasn’t paying attention. ‘Ianto, are you listening to me?’  
  
‘What?’ He opened his eyes and took a deep breath as the pills began to take effect. ‘Sorry, I am. I was just... Carry on.’  
  
‘This might be easier if we go up and see him in person,’ Jack said, and coaxed him to the ladder. ‘Everybody’s waiting for us in the Hub.’  
  
Jack took Ianto's hand and slowly led him up the ladder out of his room, eager to see the look on his lover's face when he recognized the boy waiting for him. ‘I realise there is a lot of explaining to do about what happened and about, well, you'll see, but I just can't wait long enough to explain.’  
  
They made their way out of his office into the centre of the Hub where the others had gathered and were talking happily. Jack went over to Martha and smiled, lifting his son from her arms and bouncing him lightly before looking behind him.   
  
‘Ianto, say hello to Arthur.’  
  
Silence descended on the room as everyone watched, waiting for Ianto to react. He seemed to be unaware of it, and just stared at the child in Jack’s arms, frowning a little.   
  
‘You’re not dreaming,’ Jack said, guessing that that must be what he was thinking, although he was extremely hard to read. ‘That device which gave us Arthur, original Arthur, was keyed in to do more than just give us a child to look after, it mapped him out. The energy in it stayed with us and recreated him. In our baby.’  
  
‘But...’ Ianto began, and Toshiko seemed to hold her breath, ‘you died. Owen killed you and then Abaddon killed you... the baby was dead. They killed him.’  
  
‘We both were but, when I came back to life, so did he. I still don’t fully understand it, but... we got him back, Yan.’ He squeezed the little boy, smiling proudly. ‘It’s Arthur.’  
  
As Jack kissed his forehead and tickled his stomach a little, Arthur giggled and sounded so exactly like the child they’d lost there could really be no doubt.  
  
Another pause echoed through the room silently before Owen stood up, hands on his hips. ‘Hold on, what the hell are you talking about? What baby?’  
  
Jack looked to him and glared, remembering the feel of a bullet hitting him in the head. ‘I was pregnant when you shot me.’  
  
‘That’s not...’  
  
‘It is,’ Martha chipped in on Jack’s behalf, coyly, ‘where Jack’s from, at least it is, apparently. According to him, _our_ men are just reproductively challenged.’  
  
‘I was pregnant when you shot me,’ Jack repeated, harder, eyes filled with anger.  
  
Owen frowned for a moment, not quite able to take that in, remembering the mix of rage and insanity that had made him pull that trigger and then Ianto’s reaction. All of the anger and bitter words between them since made sense now and bile rose into his throat at the thought.  
  
He looked to Toshiko and saw her look away, and then to Gwen. At least she didn’t seem to have known either, sitting there with her mouth hanging open.   
  
‘Jack?’ Gwen gasped. ‘You... you never said...’ She shook her head, guilt washing over her. ‘If I’d have known...’  
  
‘Don’t say you wouldn’t have opened the rift if you’d have known, I don’t care.’  
  
Owen suddenly rushed out of the Hub whilst Gwen sat back in her chair a little, head turned down, looking suitably chastised and shocked.   
  
Jack turned back to Ianto, taking a step towards him. But Ianto backed up a little, still looking at them like he wasn’t sure what he was seeing.  
  
‘Ugh, this is why I don’t do families,’ the Doctor said and suddenly made a dash for the exit. Martha looked puzzled and shrugged her shoulders at their curious looks.   
  
‘Ianto please, I have so much I want to tell you. About why I left. About what happened to him and, you know, why he’s as old as he is already. There’s so much.’   
  
Arthur reached out, trying to grab hold of Ianto with his little hands, but his father just stepped back a little, putting one hand on his forehead.   
  
‘I c-can’t do this. S-s-sorry,’ Ianto muttered and walked around them, making for the exit door as well.  
  
Jack watched him go, hurt written all over his face. He sat down at Owen’s desk next to Toshiko. Arthur seemed to sense he was upset and started making sniffling noises.  
  
‘Arthur, hey come on now buddy...’ Jack bounced the toddler and looked down at him, trying to make the little boy smile but it was no use. The lip came out with a trembling pout as tears threatened to spill out of Arthur's big blue eyes.   
  
‘Oh, I know. I have just the thing to help,’ Tosh smiled brightly at Arthur and hurried over to her desk, pulling out the lowest drawer and hiding something behind her back.  
  
‘When Arthur left, we had a very very sad friend on our hands. We didn't know what to do with him, but now that Arthur's back...’ Tosh smiled and slowly pulled out the surprise from behind her back.   
  
Arthur gasped loudly and squealed, wriggling in Jack's arms to be let down to the floor. ‘Draig!!’  
  
He waddled unsteadily towards his long lost toy for a few paces, then gave up and started crawling. When Arthur finally reached his favourite dragon he cuddled it close in his arms, grinning at his father and Toshiko, looking so happy it couldn’t help but make them smile.   
  
‘What do we say, Arthur?’ Jack asked, with mock sternness.  
  
‘Thank you.’  
  
‘Still so polite,’ she said, and laughed. ‘He really is Arthur.’  
  
Jack nodded and put an arm around her, pulling her close. ‘Sorry I left,’ he said, quietly. ‘I had my hands full with this one. You have no idea how close we came to never getting him back.’  
  
Her eyes softened and she nodded her understanding. ‘I’m sorry I told Ianto about Jack, the other Jack. And for helping to open the rift...’  
  
‘Forget it. Forget it all. I think it’s time for a fresh start.’  
  
They shared a private smile, forgetting for a moment that Gwen and Martha were still there.  
  
‘I’m sorry too,’ Gwen said, stepping closer. ‘I can’t believe you’re back. And Arthur too. It’s incredible.’  
  
Jack sighed and smiled at her, painfully. ‘I wish Ianto thought so.’  
  
‘He’ll come around,’ Gwen reassured him with a pat on the shoulder. ‘Give him time. I’m still trying to get used to the idea. I mean... you were pregnant? The whole time? How...?’  
  
‘It’s not important,’ Jack deflected her questions, wearily.   
  
Gwen dropped it for a second and then just couldn’t seem to help herself. ‘When...?’  
  
‘After we lost Arthur,’ he told her, with another sigh, knowing he wasn’t going to be able to get away with saying nothing to her. Gwen had a way of wearing him down and getting information out of him when he was most vulnerable. ‘You remember when Ianto took time off after that and I went to find him? That’s when. I uh, it’s not uncommon where I’m from, for men to carry. So I wanted to do that for him.’  
  
‘But... why didn’t you tell us, Jack? We could have helped.’  
  
‘Because it was private,’ he said, and glared. ‘Okay?’  
  
She seemed to get the message as Toshiko and Martha also gave her twin disapproving stares. Gwen backed off a little and settled for watching Arthur play with Draig alongside them.   
  
Suddenly there was a strange sound overhead and papers flew about the room, a gush of wind coming in through the lift. They exchanged glances, knowing at once what it was.   
  
‘What the...’ Martha's head jerked up to the lift. ‘No, there's no way...!’ She ran towards the tourist centre and then up to the Plass, standing on the empty concrete and looking where the Tardis had once been parked. ‘I can't... he just... _what_?’   
  
Jack was right behind, his hand on Matha's shoulder as she looked around.   
  
‘He left,’ she whispered quietly, ‘without me.’  
  
‘He wouldn't do that.’  
  
‘He did it to you,’ was all she said before turning sadly to Jack and going back to the Hub.   
  
Ever since she had found out how the Doctor had just left Jack behind one day, seemingly at random, Jack had sensed a bit of anxiety in her bubbling under the surface. She hid it well but it was always with her, making her watch the Doctor with a guarded eye.   
  
Of course he was sure the Doctor had a good reason to go at that moment. A very good reason not to say a word before running off and disappearing.   
  
Then again, he’d thought that the last time too.   
  
Jack took her by the hand as she followed behind him and led her slowly through the office and back down into the underground base, hoping she would feel a little better for being amongst friends as she processed the fact that Doctor was gone.  
  
As it happened, he was wrong. Martha sat down, staring into space, looking utterly crestfallen. Not even Arthur crawling over to her and trying to climb up her leg got her attention.   
  
Jack quietly had Toshiko set up an alarm system so they would know immediately if the TARDIS reappeared, as was entirely possible. Something told him, however, that the Time Lord wasn’t going to be back for a while, since that tended to be his MO. He was always flitting away when it was least expected.  
  
The look on Martha’s face told him she thought the same thing. His heart ached for her. He knew what she must be feeling. By god how he knew that.  
  
*  
  
Ianto swirled the amber liquid in his glass before knocking it back. The burn had long since faded and now the whiskey was just leaving a warm pooling sensation in his belly.   
  
Jack. Back from his travels, and not upset with him at all. And with Arthur in tow to boot. He must be going crazy; there was no way any of this made sense.   
  
There was a pounding on his front door, but he ignored it and poured himself another glass of whiskey. He had insisted that he use a glass; seemed less pathetic than just chugging it from the bottle somehow.  
  
‘Ianto, I know you're in there I can feel you emoing.’  
  
‘Owen, get the bloody hell off my property.’  
  
‘Technically, I'm not on your property. I would like to be. But there is this thing called a _door_. It’s blocking my way.’  
  
Ianto snarled and opened the door, stomping back to his glass and letting Owen invite himself in. He was about to bark out a sarcastic, angry comment about how, since he wasn’t an innocent young blonde schoolgirl, there was no reason Owen would possibly be interested in sticking around for long. But then Owen managed to clip his shoulder on the doorframe, trip over the rug and land flat on his face.  
  
He couldn’t help it; Ianto found himself laughing.   
  
‘Fuck off,’ Owen growled, but the more Ianto laughed the more he began to smile at him. ‘Fucking ow.’ He tried and failed to get up from the floor. ‘Not gonna help me up then?’  
  
‘Nah, more chance you’ll fall again if I don’t. Drunk are we, Owen?’  
  
Owen eyed the large bottle of whiskey he was draining, raising one eyebrow. ‘Drunk are we, Ianto?’  
  
‘I’m not the one who just kissed the floor.’  
  
‘Whatever.’ Finally Owen made it back onto his feet. He straightened his jacket and plonked himself down on the couch, unceremoniously. ‘Should you be drinking with all those pills in you?’  
  
‘You’re the Doctor, not me.’ Ianto toasted that and drank back another shot.   
  
‘God you’re an idiot... you wanna wind up in the emergency room?’  
  
Ianto paused a moment to stare at him. ‘I haven’t taken any since this morning so give it a rest. I’m fine. And... I’m sorry, you’re _here_ , in my home, why?’  
  
‘Because.... you’re an idiot.’  
  
With a huffed sigh, Ianto rolled his eyes and tried to conjure the energy to glare. It didn’t work so he quickly gave up.   
  
There was a long moment of silence before Owen suddenly purposefully angled himself towards Ianto and decided to get to the point. ‘Why did you two go find another doctor?’  
  
‘What?’  
  
‘You and Jack. Didn’t think I could handle him being up the duff? What? What was it?’  
  
‘Oh. So you know, then?’  
  
Owen’s unimpressed expression confirmed it.  
  
‘Look it... it wasn’t about you, Owen,’ Ianto countered. ‘And forgive me for wanting to escape the inevitable puns and jokes and endless jibes about the secretary knocking up the boss for a change.’  
  
‘So it _was_ about me then?’  
  
‘Did you doubt it?’  
  
They chuckled together at that.  
  
‘Seriously Owen,’ Ianto sighed, ‘I just wanted someone from outside. He was a friend and I trusted him. Not that I would have minded having you. It was just, well...’  
  
‘Nah it’s alright,’ Owen mirrored his sigh and downed a shot. ‘Just, there’s no way I would have... if I’d known... oh fuck, what’s done is done.’  
  
‘I’ll drink to that.’  
  
They sat in companionable silence for a while, trading drink, helping each other numb the pain. It almost seemed like old times again.  
  
‘So what about this kid, then?’ Owen slurred, after a while. ‘What you gonna do about that?’  
  
Ianto stared blankly in front of him, a shot glass in one hand and his mind reeling with various possibilities. ‘I-I don't know,’ he finally admitted with a small voice. ‘He's not Arthur...’  
  
‘Bull shit.’  
  
Ianto turned and glared at Owen.  
  
‘He is and you know it. It **is** your son back there. The one you had before, not just, you know, amazing impregnated baby.’ Owen gestured largely with his hands and narrowly missed knocking over a picture of the first Arthur, smiling broadly with his Draig.   
  
Owen moved to catch the frame and shoved it into Ianto's face, ‘See? That same face was back in our Hub, looking at you.’  
  
Ianto took the frame from Owen and brushed it off as if Owen had left some sort of invisible cooties on the metal.   
  
‘I just don't think I can do that now,’ Ianto finally admitted with a quiet voice.  
  
‘Is that you or the pills talking?’  
  
‘Oh for fuck’s sake...’  
  
‘It’s a legit question... can’t believe you’ve been popping those things.’  
  
With exaggerated effect, Ianto sighed and shook his head. ‘So I overdosed once or twice. So what? It... wasn’t intentional. It’s nothing.’  
  
Owen sighed as well, but more out of exasperation than grandiose gesture of feeling. ‘Liar.’  
  
Again, silence overtook their conversation, filled only with the soft tinkling of glasses and slosh of pouring alcohol. Ianto intermittently poured and stared at the photograph of Arthur, his eyes continually clouding over. Then, as the clock passed two in the morning, Ianto discovered that all the alcohol was gone. It didn’t really matter, since he no longer had the motor skills to actually pour, but it was an unwelcome revelation, nonetheless.  
  
Owen viewed the calamity with a distant sort of alarm, as though he didn’t have either the energy or the inclination to express his full dismay. He puffed his chest out for a moment, as if about to say something, but just let the air burst out of him instead. But since Ianto was now staring at him, waiting for something to be said, he turned a little and tried again, eyes half lidded. ‘Wanna say... wanna say m’sorry.’  
  
‘F’what?’  
  
‘Bein’ a nutter. Shooting ‘im. H-hurtin’ you.... don’t wanna hurt you Ianto, you an’ me are mates.’  
  
‘Not mates ‘nymore,’ Ianto said and sniffled a little, the alcohol stripping away his ability to mask his true feelings.  
  
‘No, no we are... I get it now. Why you and me, why we haven’t been gettin’ on an’ all that,’ Owen slurred, blinking heavily and repeatedly. ‘Knowin’ now he was, _yanno_ , I get why you hate me.’  
  
‘Oh shut up,’ Ianto muttered, gently, ‘don’t matter now. Got him back. And Arthur... m’should be so happy.’  
  
Owen scrutinised him for a moment, both of them unaware of quite how much his head was bobbing back and forth while he did. ‘You don’ look happy.’  
  
‘I just... I just feel numb, Owen. I should be happy,’ Ianto sobbed. ‘Why aren’t I?’  
  
‘S’a good question, mate.’  
  
‘I’ve let him down.’ He clumsily wiped the tears away with his sleeve.   
  
‘Eh?’  
  
‘Jack. Shoulda believed in him and not lost it... must think ‘m so weak and... the way he looked at me, Owen. S’disappointed in me. And the wors’ thing is, he’s right, ’m all fucked up ‘n’ I hate myself ‘n’ I can’t be a dad to Arthur now. Look at me.’  
  
‘Well, no, you can't be a dad to ‘im now, you're a bleeding mess. But, you know, before we, we drank that bottle, and before the pills... you were, you know, pretty decent. I suppose.’ Owen ran his finger around the glass he had been using and looked at Ianto a bit more clearly. ‘You are good Ianto. You are. Just not, not like this. You need to,’ he paused for a hiccup before continuing, ‘you need to talk to Jack. And lay off the pills.’  
  
Ianto just shook his head, as if he wasn't even listening anymore. ‘It's not that easy Owen,’ he insisted, softly, still adamant in his refusal.   
  
‘It **is** that easy. You talk to Jack, tell ‘im you were a right tosser and say you're sorry and then you two can play nice daddies with Arthur again.’  
  
‘But it won't be the same as it was.’  
  
‘The same?’  
  
‘As it was before. With us. Now it just feels... Like it's them together plus me. S’not gonna work.’  
  
Owen paused, picking up their glasses before turning to look at the slumped figure in the high wingback chair. Ianto's face was outlined harshly from the moon and the ambient light from the street and he looked thirty years older. ‘You, Ianto Jones, are a maudlin drunk. Normally I prefer my drunken companions to be tall, busty, p’rhaps blonde. And you well, you're none of this.’   
  
‘Am too,’ Ianto protested, and Owen just raised an eyebrow. ‘Am too tall.’   
  
He rolled his eyes and hefted Ianto out of his chair, not quite steady on his own feet either. ‘We should get you to bed.’  
  
‘Where’s Jack?’ Ianto asked suddenly, arms around Owen's waist as they made their way towards Ianto's room.   
  
‘I suspect he's at the Hub.’   
  
Ianto frowned at this. ‘The Hub’s a bad place for a ba- toddler.’  
  
‘I'll make sure to let ‘im know.’   
  
‘T’many sharp objects.’  
  
‘Right.’  
  
‘And dinosaurs.’  
  
‘Which is not the usual problem in offices...’  
  
‘Does he have his Draig?’ Ianto slipped out of his clothes without a fuss, too tired or too out of it to realize that he was doing so right in front of Owen.  
  
‘Yes, he does. I said that already.’  
  
Ianto just nodded and crawled into bed, ignoring Owen completely as he fell asleep.


	8. Chapter 8

‘I’m not on shift, leave m’lone.’  
  
Jack frowned and gently batted at Owen’s face again with his fingers. This time the doctor managed to crack open an eye, but he groaned the moment he did. ‘Ngh. Close the curtains and go away.’  
  
‘Why are you sleeping on Ianto’s couch?’   
  
‘Had a heart to heart,’ Owen said with a smile that made it look as though he was still more than a little drunk. ‘Squared stuff. Was overdue.’  
  
‘Got drunk.’  
  
‘Not me, I’m sober as a clam.’ Owen tried to sit up and failed, miserably the first time. On the second attempt, he managed to roll off the couch and just about make it onto his feet. ‘Oh man,’ he gasped, holding his head. ‘Good job I’ve got a day off due.’  
  
‘Fine. Take it. Now get out of here.’  
  
Jack watched, more than a little bit bemused as Owen staggered for the front door, stopped as he reached it and waved back at him amicably, and then disappeared outside. He followed him out just long enough to be sure he was walking home and not attempting to climb into the SUV alongside Toshiko, Gwen, Martha and Arthur. Then he went back inside to try and find the man he had actually come to see.   
  
Ianto had curled up in bed, covers over his head, trying his best to block out any and all light. Jack sighed, shaking his head as he grabbed the sheets and jerked, tumbling him out of bed.   
  
‘What the...?’  
  
‘Rise and shine gorgeous,’ Jack smiled brightly at Ianto, who was still blinking owlishly and flinching from the light. Jack gave in and shut the blinds before kneeling down on the floor next to Ianto. ‘Come on, Tosh has some important readings that are coming from the museum and she wants us all to go and check them out.’  
  
‘Is this code for “let's go back to the hub and fuck”? Because I forgot my code words a long time ago,’ Ianto muttered, standing up and taking only a moment to gather his bearings.  
  
‘Nope, not code. Although if you want to...’   
  
Ianto batted at Jack's hands and glared at him. ‘Far from it, thanks,’ he stretched his back and began carefully removing the clothes he hadn't taken off last night.   
  
‘Fine. We’re going to the museum and you’re coming with us.’  
  
‘Some of us should actually do work you know.’  
  
‘This _is_ work. You have half an hour Ianto and then I'm dressing you myself.’  
  
In the tense moment which followed, it seemed things could go either way. Jack honestly couldn’t tell if Ianto was going to give in or continue to be stubborn.  
  
‘Arthur is coming along too,’ he offered, hoping it would nudge him in the right direction.  
  
Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect, as Ianto turned and started to glare at him like he could burn holes in him with his eyes. ‘On a work outing?’   
  
‘Well... alright, it’s not exactly a _top_ priority case. Tosh has apparently been getting these readings for a while and, well, I thought it would be a nice day out for us all. And Arthur. And Martha. And... last time I was here, you mentioned you wanted to see the King Tut and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs exhibition before it leaves town, which isn’t long...’  
  
‘Jack!’ Ianto yelled and felt his arm throbbing, making him dizzy. ‘Just... just leave me alone, okay? I’m not coming to the sodding museum with you. _I_ actually have some proper work to do.’  
  
‘Oh right, _proper_ work...’  
  
‘Yes. That’s what happens when the boss runs out unexpectedly, without a word.’ He yanked open his wardrobe to find something to put on. Once he’d picked out a suit, he went and sat down on his bed, deliberately, and glared at Jack. ‘Still here? Never took you for the voyeuristic type. Guess I don’t know as much about you as I thought I did. You’re a virtual stranger, really, aren’t you? Don’t even know your name. You never even told me that. So excuse me if I’m not interested in you or your tricks anymore.’   
  
The hurt look on Jack’s face told him all he needed to know about the nerves he’d touched. For a moment, he wanted to apologise, but all too quickly the anger and confusion came flooding back and stopped him from saying it. All he wanted to do was get him out of the way so he could get some painkillers and feel normal again.  
  
‘Fine,’ Jack said, through gritted teeth. ‘Hate me all you want, but sooner or later you’re going to have to see Arthur. None of this is his fault and he needs his father.’  
  
‘He’s got his father. He doesn’t need me,’ Ianto muttered, staring off into the distance.  
  
Jack sighed and turned to glare at him. ‘Oh cut the self-pitying bullshit, Ianto. You didn't let me pull any crap with Arthur the first time and I am sure as hell not going to let you do that now. You still upset about Jack? That's fine, I can take my punishments, though I certainly didn't think you were as petty as this. But Arthur is your _son_. Remember? Half yours and half mine. And you do not get to be a dead-beat dad.’   
  
Jack shot Ianto one last look, the man sitting on the bed, backbone ramrod straight. His eyes were bloodshot and lips were cracked and he looked... so different. So unkempt from his usual standard.   
  
When it became apparent that Ianto wasn’t going to say anything more, he sighed and shook his head. Things were not turning out like he imagined. Not at all. In his head, he had pictured returning and taking Ianto into his arms; telling him all about his time on the Garacoikan planet; making a fresh start; showing him off to Martha and the Doctor; seeing his face as he got Arthur back. It had been such a happy picture.   
  
‘Bye,’ he muttered, trying not to let the hurt and, to be honest, anger he was feeling interfere with his voice. With one last look in his former lover’s direction, he left.   
  
Ianto pressed his eyes shut against the tears which tried to break out as he heard the front door slam closed. Shakily, he went to his window and watched Jack get into the SUV, one hand pressed against the glass. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, wishing he had had the guts to say it when Jack had still been there.  
  
*  
  
‘A moment, Mistress. Some idiot has blocked us in. We’re going to have to move forwards a bit in order to open the back doors.’  
  
The Mistress frowned and nodded. The van she and her subordinates were hiding out in shuddered to a start and they lurched forwards a bit.   
  
Agent Star Two tested the back doors and found they could now finally open them. Behind them, a large black vehicle was shown to be the guilty culprit.  
  
‘Tch. The peoples of this planet have no conception of polite parking,’ the Mistress commented, irritably.  
  
Duly, Star Two and Star Three laughed at her comment, even though they didn’t find it funny. Their driver, Star One, chose not to bother, however. He didn’t particularly care about promotions, at least not like his colleagues did.   
  
‘Alright, for the last time, Two and Three, are you ready to retrieve the item?’  
  
They each nodded and double checked that they had all the necessary equipment on them to make their reconnaissance mission a success without drawing any undue attention to themselves.  
  
‘Good. Then move it.’  
  
The two Agents saluted their commander once more and jumped out of the back of their van, carefully closing the doors quietly behind them and checking around to be sure they hadn’t been seen.   
  
*  
  
‘Wow, I haven't been to a museum in,’ Martha trailed off as she took Arthur by the hand and walked with him. ‘Well, a long time.’  
  
Jack laughed and put his credit card back in his wallet. ‘Yeah me either, I just used to, sort of, go to the things, rather than see them afterwards.’  
  
Martha nodded and picked Arthur up as the others followed in behind them. ‘So, is this normal for you guys? I mean, going to places of interest to check up on alien activity?’  
  
Tosh burst into laughter as they turned into the dinosaur exhibit. ‘Oh good god no. Most of the time its running down back alleys in the middle of the night.’   
  
‘Ah.’  
  
‘Daddy! Daddy! LOOK DRAIG!!’ Arthur squirmed in Martha's arms and she quickly set him done, letting him run over to the large model of a dinosaur.   
  
‘Wait up Arthur, don't wander off remember?’ Jack shouted, jogging up alongside his son. ‘Yeah, good job Arthur. It's a Draig.’ Arthur turned and smiled brightly up at his dad, one finger in his mouth as he clutched Draig closer.   
  
‘He’s really walking well now,’ Gwen observed.  
  
‘Hmm, when he wants to,’ Jack replied with another chuckle as Arthur put his arms up and jumped up and down, whining to be picked up. He scooped the little boy up in his arms and angled him so he could still see the dinosaur.   
  
‘Readings are coming from this direction,’ Toshiko said, covertly looking at her PDA and nodding towards the west door leading towards the Egyptian display. ‘It’s getting much stronger.’  
  
‘Alright, Tosh and Gwen, go namedrop and get the staff to close off that part of the museum. I’d rather get this done without spectators.’  
  
‘You just don’t want to have to queue up,’ Martha said.  
  
‘That too.’  
  
She smiled and he patted her on the shoulder. Of course, he knew she was still pretty cut up about the Doctor abandoning her like that, but she was at least putting a brave face on it. Jack knew she was holding out hope he would be back soon; the fact that she had delayed contacting her family or going home to continue her studies in order to stay around Cardiff for a while longer, just in case, proved that. And maybe he would. Jack really didn’t know. He was quite happy to have her stay either way.  
  
While Gwen and Toshiko went to clear the Egyptian section out, Jack and Martha took Arthur around to see the giant woolly mammoth model in the Neanderthal section. When Jack set the toddler down, he ran all the way around it a few times, excitedly looking it from every angle and then holding up Draig like a protector as he got into its eyeline and got a little scared.   
  
Martha giggled and knelt down beside him, holding onto him and reassuring him that Draig had scared the mammoth and Arthur was completely safe from it. She then picked him up and carried him through to the far less frightening coins display room, Jack tutting and muttering that he would be bored in there.   
  
As it happened, he was right, and they were soon going through into the Roman section, where Jack had to hold onto Arthur tightly to stop him from leaping down into the partially uncovered fort the museum was built over. Cardiff had actually been the site of four Roman forts in it so there was plenty to be seen, including a pretty impressive almost entirely restored mosaic put on display on one of the walls.   
  
Together, they went through that section and took a shortcut back towards the visiting Egyptian area, presuming correctly that Gwen and Tosh would have the section cleared by now. They were met by an irate looking teenager working there for his summer holidays and ignored his protests as they went inside.  
  
Toshiko had already apparently found what they were looking for, since she and Gwen were busy dismantling the glass of one of the displays. ‘The readings are coming from that canopic jar,’ Toshiko said, enthusiastically pointing at the item. Arthur was handed over to Martha as Jack went to look.  
  
She held him while the others were busy and guided him around the displays. Arthur froze when they reached the large glass enclosure housing the mummy of King Tutankhamen; the reason this travelling exhibition was so sort after all over the world. He looked at it for a moment and then went very pale and quiet.  
  
Meanwhile, Tosh was checking out the jar, scraping away at the dirt inside, gingerly.   
  
‘Oh for crying out loud,’ Jack said and took it from her hands, dropping it on the floor to smash it.  
  
‘Jack, what do you think you're doing?!’ Tosh screamed, reaching for the canopic jar and almost whimpering when she was too late. ‘Do you realise how many of those there are left in the world?’ Jack just gave Tosh a look, and pointed to the silvery alien device.   
  
‘I'll worry more about Egyptian tupperware later, we need to get this solved. Now.’  
  
Toshiko picked up the artefact carefully and brushed it off. ‘It’s still live so it’s probably alright. Hold on...’ She adjusted it a little and it made a strange noise. ‘It’s off now.’  
  
Martha gave a short laugh and turned to talk to Arthur, but didn't see him standing next to her. ‘Jack do you have...?’ She cut herself off when she realised that he _didn't_ and that was when she started to panic. ‘Arthur?’ She called, ignoring Jack's questions as she hurried, retracing their steps and searching for the little boy.  
  
He was nowhere to be seen.  
  
*  
  
‘Wait...’ Star Level Two shook his tracker and hit it on the side. ‘The signal’s gone. Check yours.’  
  
Star Level Three did the same and ended up shaking his device too. ‘Uh oh...’  
  
They exchanged concerned glances. It had taken them a long time and a lot of resources to get to this planet to find their bounty. Getting all this way only to lose it at the last moment was unthinkable.  
  
‘Don’t panic,’ Two mumbled, frantically adjusting his settings. ‘I’ll try to make it more sensitive. Come on, come on.’ His anticipated promotion floated past his eyes and disappeared as nothing happened.   
  
‘Hold on, I’ve got something...’ Three said. ‘It’s weak but, could be what we wanted. I’m not sure. It’s moving... this way.’  
  
Two followed his colleague as he ran through the museum, each now far less concerned with hiding their alien technology out of haste. They came to a corridor not far from the Egyptian section and the signal grew stronger. In fact, it was right in front of them.  
  
Their eyes fell upon a small child hiding one of the corners. Once more, they exchanged glances.   
  
‘Can’t be...’ Three began.  
  
‘Must be.’ At this point, he didn’t really care. He just wanted something to show for their bounty hunt and it didn’t matter what it was, so long as it gave off the right kind of signals. ‘Just grab it and let’s go. Quick!’  
  
Three ran forwards and picked up the boy, ignoring his cries. A young human girl came out of one of the entrances behind them as they began away.  
  
‘Arthur!’ she shouted and started to run after them. ‘Hey, you! Stop!’  
  
Two hurriedly pulled out his stunner and gave her a zap. She dropped to the floor immediately. ‘Go go go! Back to the ship!’  
  
It took a moment for Jack, Gwen and Toshiko to realise and follow on, looking for Martha and Arthur. The moment, they found her, panic flared amongst them.   
  
‘Come on Martha, come on,’ Jack mumbled as he tried to wake her, eyes constantly flitting to the sides to see if either Gwen or Tosh had sighted his little boy.  
  
Martha groaned and tried to open her eyes.  
  
‘Where’s Arthur? Martha, where is he?’  
  
‘They took him. Two men... Went that way...’ She pointed weakly.  
  
He was running off down the corridor, coat billowing behind him, belatedly shouting for Toshiko to come with him and Gwen to see to Martha as he disappeared.  
  
*  
  
‘Sorry Jack, I... I’ve been going through some...’ Ianto stopped and rolled his eyes, knowing he sounded even more like an idiot than he looked, practising what he wanted to say in his rear view mirror. ‘Sorry Jack, I... should have known you’d... I... Jack, I’m an idiot and crap at apologies so just...’  
  
His eyes were suddenly drawn to the museum entrance as the circular sliding doors span round and two men in identical clothes launched themselves out at a run. Ianto saw a crying Arthur being carried by one of them and didn’t stop to think as he leapt out of his car, outraged. ‘Hey!’ he yelled, running towards them to head them off at the street. ‘Hey, get your hands off him!’  
  
They saw him but continued running, and Ianto managed to grab one and the two of them tripped over. Ianto scrabbled right over him, trying to reach his son as the other man stopped in surprise.   
  
‘Arthur!’ he shouted, reaching out to him, struggling to get close.   
  
He felt a sudden juddering sting to his back and the world turned upside down. Ianto vaguely felt the sensation of being carried and saw the sky before his vision darkened to nothing, his consciousness lost with a loud bang of steel doors closing.   
  
Meanwhile Martha and Gwen ran as fast as they could after Jack, Martha still a bit wobbly on her legs. They got outside of the museum, where there would be truck deliveries, to find Jack pacing impatiently and Tosh seated inside the SUV, save for one leg, pulling her laptop out to try and tap into the museum surveillance system.   
  
‘Did you see them?’ Gwen asked, moving over to Jack and then to Tosh when Jack just shook her off, still in his own world.  
  
‘Okay I got video,’ she said, ‘but, the van... it has no license plate..."  
  
‘Then it should be fine to track.’ Jack's features were set as he got into the SUV and buckled up. ‘We need to find out who would kidnap Arthur, who knows about him and what their connection to Torchwood might be.’  
  
‘Oh. Oh Jack,’ Toshiko stopped and replayed the video. ‘You need to see this.’ She turned the computer and let Jack watch as Arthur was carried away and then... was followed by Ianto.  
  
‘What the hell?’ He watched as Ianto felled one of the men and then tried to crawl over him to reach the other, until the man on the floor buzzed him in the back with something alien.  
  
‘That’s what they zapped me with!’ Martha said, angrily.  
  
A woman in the same uniform got out of the van in front of the SUV in the footage and some sort of hurried conversation took place. He took Arthur as the two original men picked up Ianto and hauled him into the back, before the doors were slammed closed and it sped off.  
  
Jack unbuckled and launched himself out of the SUV. Over the road, he saw Ianto’s car parked under some trees, the driver’s seat door wide open. ‘No,’ he gasped, under his breath. ‘No no no...’   
  
It took a hand on his shoulder, shaking him, to snap him out of the fugue state he couldn’t help but fall into as he felt his insides splintering apart in shock. Martha silently brought him back and comforted him at the same time with her eyes.   
  
‘I’m pulling up other CCTV,’ Toshiko continued, calling out of the door so Jack would hear her. ‘One second...’ She and Gwen watched the next piece of footage that came up on the screen and both gasped in at the same time.  
  
‘What?’ Jack croaked and then impatiently grabbed the screen and turned it to see when Toshiko didn’t move fast enough.   
  
The replay showed the van turning the corner into a road, moving along a short distance and bursting into an array of light, like it was changing shape somehow.   
  
Then, suddenly, it lifted off into the air and was gone through the clouds in a matter of seconds.


	9. Chapter 9

When Ianto came to, reality seemed to be reshaping itself. Everything seemed woozy and kind of elongated. He was inside of some kind of box which looked like it was made of metal, but which was growing and pulsing, like a bird unfurling its wings.   
  
He vaguely realised that were ropes around his ankles and his wrists, the latter causing the tender scarred tissue on his right arm to burn, and a small but warm presence right next to his left side. He tried to twist and turn out of his bonds but his captors had obviously tied him with good knots. ‘Fuck,’ he groaned as the person next to him shifted and snuffled.   
  
‘Daddy?’  
  
Ianto's heart stopped beating for a moment as he turned, having to blink hard in order to see the faint outline of a small child.   
  
‘Arthur?’  
  
‘Daddy,’ Arthur snuffled, climbing onto Ianto's lap and wrapping his small chubby arms around Ianto's neck. ‘Mm scared.’  
  
Ianto could tell that Arthur's voice was only barely holding in the hysteria and he reached up, wincing at the rope burn to slowly rub Arthur's back, realising how very surreal this all was. ‘It’s alright. It’s alright. I’m here.’  
  
Now that his eyesight was clearing, he was certain he was imagining the strange effect of the space they were in changing shape and reforming itself. After a few more moments, it seemed to have settled into one size and Ianto realised, with some alarm, that the view out of the window at the far end wall was not that of earth.  
  
There was only darkness tempered by twinkling stars, stretching out forever. They were in space.  
  
He tried not to gasp but couldn’t help it. They were trapped and there was nowhere to go except the cold emptiness of the vacuum outside. And when he thought about what might have happened had he not swallowed his pride to go and find Jack at the museum and managed to get himself taken too - of Arthur being taken away like this, but all alone - he nearly threw up.   
  
*  
  
It was much later when anyone else entered the strange room Ianto and Arthur had been dumped into. The man, at least it looked vaguely man-ish, had a sort of mask over his face and was carrying two trays with him. He grunted and handed them both over to Ianto before making his way back towards the only door into the room.   
  
‘Wait, what is this?’ Ianto called out, Arthur now asleep in his lap and holding on desperately. ‘I mean, are we just supposed to eat whatever you hand us and not assume it will kill us?’  
  
The man before him didn't seem to understand a word he said and just grunted “eat” in a vaguely cave-man like way, before disappearing from the room entirely.   
  
Ianto sighed; he bet Jack never had to worry about psychotic aliens kidnapping his son. Well, except for that whole thing with the Doctor...   
  
He looked at the food which was vaguely mush like before giving it a very tentative taste. It wasn't overly sweet, but neither was it excessively foul. Shrugging, Ianto tried a bit more and hoped that his captors were going to explain what they were here for at some point.   
  
Arthur sniffled a little and stretched one of his arms out, taking Ianto’s attention right away from the food, which he put aside just in case. He looked down at the little boy and brushed an errant lock of dark, curled hair from his forehead, reflecting with disbelief that it really was Arthur. Right down to the little freckle on his temple. It was incredible.   
  
He wanted to cry.  
  
Little spots were dancing before his eyes and his arm was throbbing a little; Ianto knew this sensation, and knew that he was quite possibly in real trouble. He had left his pills behind in the car. Although he knew he wasn’t at the point where he couldn’t do without them, Ianto couldn’t help but twitch at the thought of their absence, especially in such a situation.   
  
But he knew just as well that it was up to him to find a way out. Arthur had no one else. Jack and the team were unlikely to know that they had been taken out into space somehow. Ianto supposed that, with the Doctor on hand, there was a slim chance of rescue. However, it had to be pretty slim all variables considered.   
  
He heard the sound of raised voices, alien voices, coming from somewhere not too far away, chattering all at once like an argument was going on. Ianto hoped that it had been a miscalculation to have taken them both and that the disagreement was about that. Again, however, the chances had to be pretty slim.   
  
All in all, things weren’t looking too good so far.   
  
*  
  
‘Of all the idiotic...’  
  
‘Mistress, we apologise! But it was giving off radiation...’  
  
‘I distinctly remember saying that it was a small silver _device_. Not a brown headed brat!’ The Mistress stalked into the holding room, her grunts flanked on either side and cowering in submissive insolence.   
  
She ran a cool eye over the two humans before turning back to the man on her right. ‘Which one was giving off radiation?’ she asked again, pulling another device out of her pocket.  
  
‘That one, the little one,’ Star Three replied, pointing. The Mistress nodded and turned on her device, waiting for it to begin beeping before nodding.   
  
‘It is not what I asked for. But perhaps we can sort something.’ She snapped her fingers irritably, and said, ‘Bring him,’ before turning and leaving.  
  
She went through the adjoining door made herself comfortable on the throne at the far end of her personal domain. She found it to be a little bumpy at first because the spatial compressor was still deactivating and most parts of their ship were still returning to normal. Soon enough though it reached its proper size and she was able to sit on it as normal while she waited.   
  
It took longer than she expected, and when the child was finally brought to her, she noticed Star Two quivering and sweating.   
  
‘The adult human kicked him in a delicate place as he lifted up this one,’ Star One advised her, quickly, clearly trying not to laugh.  
  
Her lips quivered in amusement. ‘How unfortunate that you accidentally brought him along then, eh?’ the Mistress said, her amusement quickly giving way to irritation at their blundering.   
  
‘I’ll find a buyer for him myself...’ Star Two wheezed.  
  
‘That’s not the point!’ the Mistress snapped. ‘The point is, we’re on a tight deadline. We don’t have time to make mistakes. Who knows what bringing this scraggy little thing,’ she said, regarding the sleepy child being held up in the air for her, ‘instead of what was requested will cost us. And we don’t have time to go back now.’  
  
Two and Three both looked suitably penitent for their mistake.   
  
She shook her head and sighed. ‘Three, go watch the man. He may become restless with this one out of his sight. It is so small and helpless.’  
  
He nodded and did as she said, making his way into the side room.  
  
Immediately he was startled by a pair of fists, tied close by rope, nearly collided with his face, and he automatically punched back. Only he actually connected.  
  
Ianto lay on the cold, bare floor, holding his left arm with his right and muttering curses to the alien that had managed to send him across the room and into the door with one punch. So, it seemed overpowering them was clearly not an option and Ianto wasn't in the mood to continue going at things half cocked. He needed to sit down and focus before he got his son in trouble.   
  
Gritting his teeth, he sat up and shook his head clear, forcing his mind to focus on the problem at hand here. He and Arthur were being held captive, in space, by unknown aliens. He didn’t know what they were or what they wanted with them. In fact, he knew fairly little.  
  
But this was no time to panic. Feeling a bit calmer by assessing the situation, Ianto quickly moved on to assets that he had, and realised that it extended as far as his PDA and the bit of rope around his hands. He was no MacGyver and there was no way he could jury-rig a laser out of that.   
  
He leaned back against the wall with a sigh and forced his mind on getting out and not on what sorts of evils they could be doing to his son; the fear of not having him in his sight would be threatening to overwhelm him otherwise.  
  
The large alien that had sent him flying was standing back, regarding him, perhaps with curiosity or perhaps with disgust; he really couldn’t tell either way, since the mask he was wearing was vaguely human but moulded so that it didn’t move much. Ianto didn’t like him staring, whatever the reason.   
  
‘Look, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but please, give my son back to me.’ Ianto had no idea if the man understood a word of what he was saying but kept trying anyway. ‘He’s just a baby, he... doesn’t know what’s happening.’   
  
Somewhere nearby, he heard Arthur start to cry and immediately instinct took him over. Despite the pain in his arm, his throbbing head and the nausea that came from not having any pills, his immediate reaction was to try and get to him. The alien didn’t let him get far and sent him crashing back towards the wall. Ianto glared at him while he tried to think of something to do.   
  
‘Arthur!’ he yelled at the top of his voice, hoping against hope that his son would hear him and be reassured. ‘Arthur, I’m here! Don’t be scared, I’m here!’  
  
The man watching him took hold of his bonds and tied him securely where he was to a pipe in the wall. Ianto fought and kicked and even spat at him, yet all to no avail.   
  
Three went back into the other room, where the Mistress was busy scanning the child with various devices. ‘The human is getting very agitated.’  
  
‘He’s not the only one,’ the Mistress said, wincing at Arthur’s increasingly loud cries. ‘I never heard anything so shrill.’  
  
‘It can’t be human,’ said One, holding his hands over his ears.  
  
‘All scans say that it is. The energy we’re picking up seems to be some sort of trace interference from something.’ She sighed and then frowned. ‘I’m going to have to do some pretty creative bluffing to pass this thing off as valuable.’ The Mistress handed Arthur over to Two. ‘Put it back with the human. I’m getting a headache.’  
  
*  
  
Ianto glared at the vaguely alien men and snatched back his son, his body curling around him protectively. ‘Don't worry Arthur, they won't take you again if I can help it.’ He pulled at his bonds to run soothing hand over his head and down his hair, humming softly as he held him close.   
  
With Arthur back in his arms, he was able to focus a bit better; his mind, once razor sharp, moved sluggishly as it began to calculate all the possible escape routes that could be feasible for them.  
  
Only minutes later, one of the smaller creatures shuffled in, bearing something that hopefully resembled water for them.   
  
‘Thanks,’ he muttered, dipping his fingers in and testing it before tilting Arthur’s head back and letting him drink first.   
  
‘Is son?’ the creature asked in rather stilted, heavily accented English, head titled as though it took some effort.  
  
‘Yes, he’s my son.’   
  
The alien didn't say anything else; just grunted and nodded and left the room.  
  
Arthur was curled up on the floor, back against the wall, looking as if he was trying to get as far away from the door as possible. Sliding over, Ianto pulled him close and held him in his lap, protecting him as much as he could from anyone that was going to come in.  
  
‘Home?’ Arthur’s voice asked, quiet and tiny in the cold, dark room.  
  
‘I, I don’t know Arthur. Soon I hope.’ There was a snuffling sound and it wasn’t too much longer that Ianto felt the dead weight of a sleeping child in his arms. Ianto closed his own eyes and allowed himself just a bit of sleep to escape from the sickness sweeping over him.  
  
*  
  
Ianto awoke some time later to a pounding headache. His throat was dry and his stomach was twisted up into knots. His whole body ached and, god, it hurt so much.   
  
He quickly moved Arthur to the floor before he doubled over, retching up the little bit of water he had drank earlier. His entire body was racked with shivers as he felt a cold wave pass through his body and Ianto finally knew what humiliation was when his son knelt over and press his small hand to his forehead, apparently trying to make him feel better.  
  
The door to their room creaked open again and Ianto tried to stand and fend off the alien as he came in once more for Arthur, but he was too weak.   
  
He had never known such failure as having to watch his son being taken away and unable to do anything; the price of his stupidity, both in not keeping some spare pills in his pocket in case of emergency and, really, in getting addicted to them in the first place.  
  
And so he spent the next day - or it might only have been an hour, he really couldn’t tell anymore - drifting in and out of consciousness, not always sure if Arthur was indeed with him at times or if that was just a dream. When he was cognisant enough, and his bonds were finally broken, he spent the time he was awake running the length of their room, doing as many push ups and sit ups as his body would allow, always pushing himself, hoping that he might be able to slowly make in roads on what the pills had taken away. All that mattered was that he stay focused, stay lucid, and keep active.  
  
It was in the middle of the night (or so Ianto assumed, since it was always night in space) when he heard it; the shrill cry of a terrified child. Without even really thinking, he had jumped to his feet and was pacing the room, trying to get the door open for the tenth or twentieth time. It was no use.  
  
He saw red. Sheer blood red which made his mind feel like it was boiling. Ianto wanted to tear out their throats and pop theirs eyes with his thumbs. In that moment, rage was all he knew.  
  
‘Fuck!!’ he screamed and tried again, frantically, but the locks wouldn’t budge. Slamming his hand against the wall, he managed to make himself stop. His injured arm throbbed with the impact and Ianto slid down the wall, cradling it, tears of frustration rolling down his face.   
  
The rage began to be replaced with a self pitying depression that threatened to overwhelm him entirely. Fortunately however, before it could really take hold, the door opened and one of the aliens stepped through, reigniting his anger and focusing his mind back into action.  
  
Without thinking, Ianto launched himself at the man, knocking him to the ground and wrestling his weapon away. ‘This is for taking me!’ Ianto growled, back handing the alien with the gun. ‘And this is for taking my son!’ he continued, laying a good punch on the underside of his jaw. ‘And this, is for whatever it is you’re doing to him!’ he landed one more punch, knocking him out as he jumped up, gun in hand and ready for vengeance.   
  
‘S-stop!’ the alien stuttered. ‘I get son. I get son!’  
  
Ianto narrowed his eyes and glared at him, wildly. ‘No, you’ll take me to him. If he’s unharmed, I _might_ let you live. Understand?’ He dug the weapon, whatever it was, into his jaw, hoping it was capable of killing in order to make his threat sound feasible.  
  
He didn’t think the alien understood him entirely when he nodded, but he let him up all the same, taking a moment to tie his hands up using the bonds he’d freed himself from.  
  
The large man in black uniform led the way out into an area which looked like a giant cockpit, only with seating and a dashboard reminiscent of something from an earth van or lorry. That struck Ianto as somewhat odd but he wasn’t about to question it. He kept the weapon firmly pressed against the alien’s back as best he could, considering the shakes he had, and kept him going.   
  
What happened next was a blur. He was vaguely aware of another alien, who looked pretty much exactly the same as the one he had in front of him, appearing to their side, and he had to act fast to avoid being recaptured. All of the training Jack had given him really kicked in alongside the adrenalin rush. Before he knew it, he had used the weapon – some kind of stun gun zapper – to knock both of them out.   
  
Ianto ran along into the next room and found Arthur stuck on a plyth before a gold throne, all dressed up in weird clothes with strange bits of technology stuck all over him. He didn’t look particularly happy about it. A woman dressed in the same uniform was the one dressing him up and she looked shocked to see Ianto. She charged at him and he had to deflect her. When she hit the wall, he managed to zap her and she passed out as well.  
  
There was one last alien, but he stepped back and seemed happy to let him by without a fight. Ianto kept his eyes on him but couldn’t help but run to Arthur and start pulling all of the wires and circuit boards stuck around his clothes right off him. ‘What the heck did they think they were doing?’ he muttered.   
  
Once all the restraints were gone, Arthur stretched out his arms to him and grabbed hold, mumbling something which sounded like “love you daddy, wanna go home, don’t like it here”, or something like that.   
  
Although his muscles were aching beyond belief, Ianto managed to lift his son up and made himself a promise never to let him go ever again. He couldn’t even begin to think of resuming the non-interference stance he’d told himself was necessary prior to their being kidnapped. No, he would get better. He would defeat his dependency, heal his arm properly and be everything Arthur needed him to be. That too was a promise he made to himself.  
  
Ianto had the final alien drag his fellows into a side room and lock them in. Then, at gunpoint, he set about trying to make him understand that he wanted him to turn the ship around and take them back to earth.  
  
It took some time, but eventually, he seemed to get through to the man. But he didn’t allow himself to rest, no matter how much his body was screaming out for it, until the small dot of a familiar planet came into view. And even then he couldn’t bring himself to let go.  
  
They were almost there. Almost home. If only he could hold on a little longer.  
  
*  
  
Although he didn’t exactly know what the man was saying, Ianto knew it probably wasn’t good. In fact, he looked a little panicked and seemed to be miming some sort of collision scenario.   
  
Great Britain, and then Wales, and then Cardiff had come into view one at a time, but the land seemed to be closing in far too fast.  
  
Something on the dials beeped and a familiar voice crackled in, unsteadily. ‘... Torchwood... retreat and... warning... territory... Shadow Proc... retreat’  
  
‘Tosh!’ he shouted. ‘Tosh, it’s Ianto! Can you hear me?’ He frantically tried to find a way to talk back to her but the signal seemed to fade before he could.   
  
Ianto watched the land coming closer and closer and then managed at least to get their unwilling pilot to angle them towards the bay, since it would hopefully lessen the impact. Even that might be a bad idea; although the vessel could withstand space travel, water was a whole other ballgame. They were almost certainly going to be watertight but Ianto had a feeling they wouldn’t be able to go too far into the deep before the hull began to buckle under the pressure.   
  
Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be much else they could do. So Ianto found some straps and did his best to secure himself and Arthur into the front seat, whilst still pressing the stun gun into the alien’s arm. Then, he braced himself, told Arthur to cover his eyes, and waited.  
  
Everything became a blur once they crashed down, and they span for long enough to make him feel dizzy. Once they righted, he soon realised that he was dead on right about the water pressure; the viewing screen in front of them was starting to crack up.   
  
Ianto looked around, blinking away the fuzz and sweat falling off his forehead, hoping to see a way out. Nothing presented itself; no miraculous escape pods. Just some boxes, some ropes and lots of pipes.  
  
The alien man was fighting the controls of the ship but Ianto had no idea if he was getting anywhere. All he knew was, when that glass broke, they would more than likely be sucked out into the water, and if they were too deep that would be a death sentence. Considering the speed at which they hit the water, it seemed rather likely.  
  
The glass cracked more and the alien immediately became less concerned about the stun gun aimed him. He dashed aside whilst Ianto wasn’t looking, pulled open a wall panel and started pulling out backpacks with various different strings hanging off them. Ianto followed him and grabbed onto one, hoping they were some alien form of lifejacket, since the man was putting one on himself.   
  
They were all too big for Arthur so he put one on himself and strapped the toddler in with him, carefully, against his chest. Ianto risked a glance at the viewscreen and could tell it wasn’t going to last much longer.  
  
He copied the alien man in grabbing hold of the piping on the walls and waited.  
  
Luckily, the front window didn’t go all at once. It went in small parts, letting in jets of water one burst at a time. When, finally, the sea rushed in, Ianto shielded Arthur with his body and waited for the initial wall of water to stop beating him. He saw the alien man pull one of his strings and suddenly seem to be able to walk around the room in a sort of a fitted-bubble.   
  
Ianto took pot luck and pulled his own, only to find himself being jet propelled right out of the ship, into the water. He angled himself up and in a matter of seconds, he and Arthur broke the surface. The jacket stopped propelling them the moment they hit the air and they were left spluttering in the cold water, Ianto taking great care to make sure his son was still conscious and breathing, even if he looked cold and scared.   
  
It was dark over Cardiff; that only made the direction they needed to go in all the clearer. He set his sights on the lights of the bay, and turned onto his back, using every last bit of strength he had to swim to shore, doing the backstroke so that Arthur could just cling onto his chest, out of the water as much as possible, more or less safe.  
  
When he was about halfway there, he saw the ship rising back out of the water and up into the air. For some reason, he felt oddly passive about it. Ianto supposed he should be cursing them; wishing them dead; plotting revenge. But all he could think was, “good riddance, get out of here and don’t come back” and not care that they were getting away.   
  
He just kept swimming and swimming and swimming, through the pain and nausea and fatigue. And when they hit land, he had no idea how he had actually made it. The old adrenaline had kicked in, he supposed.   
  
All he really registered after that was big headlights from a black vehicle dazzling them, Arthur being pulled away from him by someone he knew, and warm, strong, very familiar arms catching him as he fell back and slipped into the darkness, more exhausted than he had ever been before in his entire life.


	10. Chapter 10

‘So, I guess there’s just one question left to ask,’ Owen said. He was looking at Jack via the reflection of him in the glass window they were standing behind, looking in on Ianto.  
  
‘What do we do now?’  
  
Owen shrugged. ‘I figure we have two options. Give him what he needs or see if he’s strong enough to ride it out.’  
  
Jack shuffled a little closer to the glass screen, taking in the sight of the man he loved restrained on the cell bed, dripping with sweat, living nightmares in his mind. It made him feel like his chest was being scraped out with something rusty and blunt. Yet, even then, there was really only one answer to that dilemma.  
  
‘He’s one of the strongest people I know,’ Jack said, quietly. ‘Just look at what he did to save Arthur. He can beat it, I know he can. We just need to give him the chance. He’s made it this far. Controlled it.’  
  
‘Yeah but that swim in the bay has really set him back. He could be too weak. And I should probably tell you that, vicodin? Not so good for the cold turkey-ing.’  
  
‘You think we should dope him happy again?’  
  
After a long pause, during which they both watched Ianto and each other’s reflections, Owen shook his head. It seemed like a reluctant shake, but Jack didn’t blame him for that. Neither of them were really sure if they were doing the right thing. All they had was gut instinct and faith, and that had been running thin ever since they’d turned around to find Arthur gone and Martha out cold.  
  
‘It’s going to be a rough ride,’ Owen informed him, trying to take on his doctor’s stance and step away from his inclination to make judgements based on their recently renewed friendship. ‘Expect nausea, muscle pain, involuntary movements, vomiting, cold flashes, maybe some diarrhoea...’  
  
‘Just make him as comfortable as possible. I’ll be back to check on him soon.’  
  
‘Sure.’  
  
Jack resisted the very strong urge he had to go inside the cell and hold Ianto with thoughts of Arthur waiting for him, and left for the Hub.  
  
His son was sitting on the floor, surrounded by various new toys he had been given, mostly by Toshiko. She’d been practically unable to leave him alone for a second since his return and was definitely spoiling him. Martha too was keeping close watch and being extremely attentive. Gwen was even tolerating his persistent hair-pulling; also too pleased to have him back to care about that anymore.  
  
Arthur was sitting on Martha’s lap on the floor, while Draig was made very comfortable on Toshiko’s, at Arthur’s behest. Together they were playing Hungry Hippos and Arthur was squealing with delight every time the girls deliberately set the Hippo’s snapping jaws off. He obviously found the whole game hilarious, judging by the sound of it. But when he saw Jack coming in, he quickly wriggled off Martha’s lap and ran to his father, who scooped him right up into his arms to tickle him.  
  
Toshiko cleared up the abandoned game as Jack took Arthur over to the seating area, where there was a plate of cookies – also a treat someone had brought for Arthur in relief that he was back – and shared them with him. Martha came and sat down beside him.  
  
‘I’m glad he’s alright,’ she said, quietly, leaning against Jack a little.  
  
‘Me too.’ Jack smiled, but it was a little empty. ‘And how about you, Martha? How are you?’  
  
She paused for a moment, as if considering her answer carefully. ‘I’ll be fine... Thinking, maybe it’s time to... to call home. Finish that medical degree. Stuff like that.’  
  
Jack pulled her into a sidelong hug, knowing what that meant and how hard it must have been for her to make that decision. ‘You know, when you’ve finished that up and got a nice certificate hanging on the wall, there’ll always be a job waiting here for you if you want it.’  
  
‘Thanks,’ she said, and laughed as Arthur attempted to stuff her mouth with a cookie and then joined in with the hug.  
  
There was a sudden whoosh and all of the papers on Toshiko’s desk scattered into the air, accompanied by a very familiar sound. Everybody froze for a few seconds, and then Martha and Jack both snapped their heads aside towards each other.  
  
‘Was that...?’ Jack began.  
  
‘Is it...?’ Martha said, almost at the same time.  
  
‘Uncy Doctor!’ Arthur yelled and scrambled off Jack’s lap to make a dash for the Hub door.  
  
‘Whoa!’ Jack said and ran after him, having to make a real effort to actually catch him. ‘Man, I’m gonna need to get a leash for this kid.’  
  
He went through the bars and turned back to see Martha hanging back, looking oddly scared. Like she wasn’t sure whether she even wanted to go see, her emotions running just a little too close to the surface for comfort.  
  
Toshiko put a hand on her shoulder, reassuringly, and Jack gave her a smile as if to say that everything was going to be okay. Martha gained a little courage for that and together, they made their way up through the front office and out across the Plass.  
  
Sure enough, the TARDIS was standing exactly where it always did, under the shadow of the water tower. As they approached, they could see that there were a few scorch marks on the doors and what looked like futuristic arrows sticking out of it. The Doctor emerged, followed by a small cloud of smoke. He was a little singed around the edges himself, but looked jovial enough despite it.  
  
‘Wheu!’ he coughed, waving his hand in air.  
  
‘Doctor, what happened?’ Jack asked.  
  
‘One of these damned arrows came in before I closed the door. Hit a console, and it got a bit smoky...’  
  
‘Not that.’  
  
Martha marched up and punched him in the arm.  
  
‘Ow!’ the Doctor protested. ‘What was that for?’  
  
‘You left me!’  
  
‘Oh, well... yes, but not for long. I had a good reason.’ He stopped as if he’d forgotten something, then went back inside. After a moment of curious exchanged glances between them, he returned with what looked like a gun from a zombie-shooter arcade machine, only with some liquid capsules in it and a needle at the end. ‘You would not believe what I had to go through to get this. Started a few wars actually.’  
  
‘What is it?’ Toshiko asked, her eyes showing his scientific curiosity peaking at the sight of it.  
  
‘For your Ianto. Something to help him.’ He smiled and passed it over to Jack, taking Arthur from him in the same motion. ‘Hello, Arthur.’  
  
‘Uncy Doctor!’ the little boy squealed and hugged him, tightly, to his immense and obvious embarrassment.  
  
‘Ah, I missed you little guy,’ he conceded, quietly and ruffled his hair.  
  
Jack eyed the gun, carefully. ‘What is it?’  
  
‘A shortcut. Not a cure. Just a shortcut, but... well, I...’ he stopped for a moment for surprise at the tears welling up in Jack’s eyes, ‘I thought you could use it and, well, it wasn’t exactly the safest trip I could ever have chosen to make. Tribal wars. Arrows. That sort of thing. So I thought it best to go alone.’ The Doctor turned to Martha, giving her a shy smile. ‘Sorry. I won’t do it again.’  
  
Her smile contained forgiveness, even if there was a little more wariness than there had been before as well.  
  
‘So,’ he began, loudly.  
  
‘So!’ Arthur mimicked him, to his amusement.  
  
‘So, what are we waiting for? Are you going to try that thing out or not? One shot is all it takes.’  
  
Jack gave him a grin and broke into a run across the Plass, leaving the others to play catch-up all the way.  
  
Once back in the Hub, he asked them to remain behind and went down to the cells alone. Owen was there and, of course, protested at his attempt to go inside.  
  
‘You’re not going in there until you tell me what’s in that,’ he said, eyeing the gun warily.  
  
‘I don’t know, but I trust the Doctor.’  
  
Owen gave him a long, hard stare and then sighed, stepping back. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing.’  
  
Jack opened the door and treaded carefully towards Ianto, who didn’t seem to realise he was there at first. Slowly, bleary eyes focused in on him while the rest of his body kept shaking and twitching against the bonds. ‘Hey,’ he whispered, soothingly, and stroked his cheek, ‘I’ve got something to make this easier for you, alright?’  
  
He pushed the needle into Ianto’s arm and pulled the trigger, releasing some of whatever liquids were inside it, into him. Then he put it down and stood over him, watching and waiting for some kind of response. Needing it.  
  
After a minute or two, Ianto stopped shivering and seemed to get himself a little more under control. Jack traced various stages of it working, with him becoming more and more lucid and less pale.  
  
‘Jack?’ Ianto murmured.  
  
‘I’m here. How do you feel?’  
  
‘Where’s Arthur?’  
  
‘He’s safe. It’s alright, you have nothing to worry about. He’s safe. You saved him.’  
  
Ianto relaxed a little hearing that. Owen appeared beside them and started doing tests but he largely went unnoticed.  
  
‘How do you feel?’ Jack asked.  
  
‘D-doesn’t hurt anymore.’  
  
‘Good.’  
  
‘BP’s back to normal,’ Owen informed him. ‘Heart rate too. Signs look good.’  
  
‘Untie me,’ Ianto said, his lips dry and his voice sounding hoarse.  
  
Jack hesitated for a moment but then did as he was asked. Ianto managed to sit himself up and looked at Jack like he wasn’t sure what to say. Fortunately, words weren’t needed, as Jack threw his arms around him.  
  
‘Jack, I’m... I’m so sorry,’ Ianto gasped, holding onto him as well, like his life depending it on it. ‘So sorry.’  
  
‘Don’t. It’s over. You’re going to be alright. We’re going to be alright.’  
  
He smiled and it seemed to Jack like it was the first genuine smile he’d seen from Ianto since his return. It made his heart boom in his chest to see it.  
  
‘I want to go home,’ Ianto said, with a shiver that made Jack pull him closer. ‘Take me home?’  
  
‘Owen?’ Jack asked.  
  
The doctor frowned and checked his readings more. ‘Looks like he’s out of danger, but I would prefer for him to stick around here until we can be sure... I need to do some tests and...’  
  
‘Noted.’  
  
The look on Owen’s face said that he knew they weren’t going to take any notice of him, and he was proved right as Jack part lifted Ianto to his feet and hugged him. He picked up the medicinal gun Jack had used and examined it. ‘Tosh is going to want to have a close look at this baby,’ he said, but when he looked up, Jack and Ianto were already halfway out of the door.  
  
There was a strange, expectant silence as they left the lift together and went into the main Hub. Toshiko turned and got to her feet as she saw them, holding Arthur up with him. Then Martha and the Doctor saw them and smiled.  
  
Ianto pulled away from Jack and staggered slowly to Toshiko, taking hold of his son and holding him, his emotions clearly running high. Jack moved in behind him and put his arms around them both.  
  
Martha suddenly gasped and made a dash for the exit, leaving the Doctor looking perplexed. His attention switched as Ianto looked to him.  
  
‘Thank you,’ Ianto croaked. ‘Jack told me what you did while on the way up here.’  
  
‘My pleasure,’ he said, genuinely and took his hand as it was offered to shake it, cordially.  
  
Jack put his arm around Ianto’s shoulders and kissed him on the temple. ‘Let’s get you home.’  
  
‘One moment.’ Ianto turned back to Toshiko. ‘Will you take Arthur tonight? Jack and I have a lot to talk about.’  
  
‘Of course,’ she said, delighted, and took him out of his arms.  
  
‘You and Draig be good, alright?’  
  
Arthur promised in toddler babble.  
  
Ianto turned back and let Jack hold onto him as they made their way slowly towards the exit. But as they reached the main passage, Martha ran out of the far end lift, completely out of breath, and almost went straight into them. She stopped, panting, and held up a red book which Jack immediately recognised to be the album she had made for Ianto.  
  
‘I would have... given you this sooner but... when the Doctor took off... well, you know,’ she panted.  
  
Jack took it from her and tucked it under his arm. ‘I’ll show him later. Thank you, Martha.’  
  
She smiled at them both for a little longer than was perhaps necessary, before realising she was blocking their path. Martha stepped aside and watched them leave together, feeling unaccountably happy that things had, it seemed, worked out.  
  
*  
  
Ianto hadn’t said much since Jack had propped him up against his body on their bed and opened up the red album. He listened as Jack explained everything, and how it all unfolded, and why Arthur aged so quickly. Every photograph held a story and Jack wanted to tell him absolutely everything.  
  
‘And that was the day I realised he was actually Arthur,’ he said, as they reached the last photograph, of him, their son, the Doctor and Martha in the park. ‘It was such a shock. Even though I knew, I mean, I could see the resemblance... to have him with the same memories and everything... it was unbelievable.’ Jack sighed and flipped the photos back to the start. ‘You’ve no idea how much I missed you. Thought about you every second, Yan.’  
  
Ianto nodded, looking somewhat troubled by it all. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, at last. ‘You did the right thing. Going with them, I mean. I’m... I’m sorry I betrayed you. I’m sorry I didn’t hold on for you...’  
  
‘Don’t. You have nothing to be sorry for. Nothing.’ Jack squeezed him a little in his arms. ‘I’m sorry I made you feel the way you did. And I’m not just talking about leaving.’ He gulped, audibly. ‘I’m sorry about the other Jack, too. I don’t really know what that was about; mood music and romance, I guess. I’m a sucker for doomed love stories. But it was... completely separate to what we have. Another world, another time. Like a dream. I never stopped loving you, you know. I never will.’  
  
Ianto stroked the photograph of Jack under anaesthetic on the operating table, their son being lifted out of him. ‘I wish...’  
  
‘I know. Me too.’  
  
They sat together for a while, Jack cuddling Ianto tightly and Ianto leaning back into him, sleepily.  
  
‘How do you feel?’ Jack asked, after a while.  
  
‘Better. I still...’ he trailed off.  
  
‘What? You can tell me.’  
  
‘I still feel like I want the pills but... I don’t need them.’ He smiled, sadly. ‘I guess it’ll take a bit longer for the psychological effects to wear off than the physical ones.’  
  
Jack put the album aside and moved out from behind Ianto to sit over him instead. He lifted up his injured arm and rolled up the sleeve to expose the injured flesh there. Gently, he kissed every inch of the scar, lovingly and tenderly, as if he could make it fade away just by that simple action.  
  
‘Jack,’ Ianto sighed, ‘make love to me.’  
  
‘Sure?’  
  
‘I need it. You have no idea how much I need it.’ His voice was cracking and barely audible. ‘I want it to be like it was between us, before...’  
  
‘It will be. It _is_ ,’ Jack promised, unbuttoning his pyjama top one at a time to expose the silky hair and pale flesh beneath.  
  
When they’d arrived, Ianto had been so tired and boneless, Jack had managed to put him into pyjamas with no protest whatsoever. Normally, Ianto put up a fight before conceding to put some on, and he only did that because he knew Jack loved him in flannel pyjamas, as if he was always dressed up prim and proper for bed as well as for work. It was a kink Jack had revealed when they’d got home from the farmhouse out in the countryside, both dizzy and extremely horny, despite the marathon sex session they’d already had getting Jack pregnant. Ianto had always professed to hate them but Jack knew he’d grown to enjoy wearing them; or, at the very least, he enjoyed what they did to Jack. They invoked a lot of very happy memories, so of course they were his first choice of something comfortable to give Ianto to wear.  
  
Jack leaned over and kiss his neck as he gently eased the shirt over his shoulders and pulled his arms out of the sleeves, sensing complete surrender in Ianto’s limp body. It was left to him to undress himself too, but he didn’t mind at all. He took pleasure in extracting himself from his clothes, an item at a time, and then doing the same for Ianto, before pressing skin against skin, as much as he possibly could.  
  
The only sign that Ianto was with him was the throaty moans escaping him as Jack kissed away his every sorrow. It had often been said that Jack’s kisses were better than any medicine in Owen’s cabinet, and he was determined to prove it for Ianto, since he needed it so much tonight.  
  
Everything in the room was exactly where he’d left it, so Jack took out some supplies and gave Ianto the VIP treatment, starting with rubbing some soothing oil into his skin and ending with placing a cushion under his hips for his comfort and opening his body up with his fingers, slowly and gently, as if they had all the time in the world. He drew Ianto into his mouth and lavished him with the attention he had been so sorely lacking, savouring the taste he had missed so much.  
  
Ianto rocked into him, stomach muscles twitching and heaving under his hand, more and more until he finally gasped, ‘Stop.’  
  
Jack understood at once and crawled over him, between long legs comfortably wrapping around him, kissing and biting his lips with far more pressure and relish as he slid easily into him, needing no guidance whatsoever.  
  
‘Jack!’ Ianto cried out, desperately, suddenly bursting into tears, completely robbed of his self control in that moment. ‘I missed you so much. I thought...’  
  
‘Don’t. Never think anything except that I fell in love with you. I _am_ in love with you and nothing can change that. Ever. You hear me?’ He moved slowly but hard, knowing Ianto needed to feel it more than anything and know that it was real, yet wanting for it to last forever. Jack kissed away the salty tears and smiled. ‘Forget the past. Let’s start fresh.’  
  
Ianto suddenly came alive under him, pushing back frantically, fingers clawing down his spine and heels digging into the small of his back. ‘I don’t want to. Not everything. Can’t forget... forget when I realised...’ he hissed and moaned as Jack’s hips snapped against him faster, ‘when I realised you meant more to me than anyone ever had. Won’t... won’t forget that.’  
  
‘Oh god, Yan,’ Jack gasped, his mind splitting in half and his body setting alight. ‘Say it again.’  
  
‘You... you mean more to me than anyone ever has... love you so much.’  
  
‘Always?’  
  
‘Always.’  
  
They clung onto each other and rode out the rush of sensation and emotion which threatened to shatter them, coming in passionate waves that came very nearly at the same time.  
  
When at last the pleasure released them, they collapsed together and exchanged gentle kisses, which were filled with promises.  
  
‘I’m so tired,’ Ianto murmured, ‘I feel like I haven’t slept in months.’  
  
Jack smiled and licked his stomach clean before turning him on his side to spoon up behind him, comfortably. ‘Then sleep. I’m not going anywhere. I promise.’  
  
‘Think I will. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.’  
  
‘We do?’  
  
Ianto chuckled, even as his eyes started to slide closed. ‘Need to find a nursery. Maybe a nanny. Should find... a good school for... when he’s older...’ He gradually faded out, all his hopes for their son’s future sliding into his dreams.  
  
Gently, Jack pulled the covers over them both and kissed his shoulder before settling down. But he didn’t go to sleep that night. His mind was too alive with thoughts of Arthur growing up, turning into a young man; maybe even finding his own adventures one day.  
  
He thought of the daughter he had left behind and whose entire life he had missed out on, and shed a few private tears in remembering her. Jack vowed that would never happen again. This time, things would be different. He was older, wiser, more in love than he could ever remember being, and he couldn’t imagine anywhere he’d rather be than where he was right there and then. This time, everything was right.  
  
In the early hours of the morning, Jack dreamily flipped the lid back from his wrist controller and pressed in a sequence, his heart beating hard. Ianto hardly stirred, so he decided to wait until morning to tell him what he’d done. He knew how Ianto would react; how overwhelmed and happy he would be to know that Jack still wanted that life for them after everything that had happened, and Jack couldn’t stop smiling at the thought.  
  
This time, he hoped they would have a girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments are a surefire way to brighten my day. And if you don't have time for that, a Kudos only takes a second and is appreciated.
> 
> Got more time to read? I have more Jack/Ianto stories! From 2007:
> 
> Victorian Era Time Travel Love Story [24k, M] | [The Mirror in the Morgue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28897986)  
> Time Travel Angst [12k, M] [mpreg] | [A Ray, Turned Back](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28899570/)  
> Evil Twin Shenanigans [10k, E] | [Ifan](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28899729)  
> Dark AU Hurt/Comfort [12k, M] | [They're Still Killing Suzie](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28898610)  
> Outsider POV Mystery [8k, M] | [Random Clocks](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28899876)  
> Mindbending Time Vortex Series [27k, G] | [The Aesop Fables Series](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28900332/chapters/70901193)  
> Sad AU Love Story [16k, E] | [One Day](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28900824)  
> Light Porny Fun [6k, E] | [Symbiosis](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28900989)  
> And here are some new fics for 2021:
> 
> Ianto vs The Void [14k, T]: [The Pub on the Edge of Forever](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29588298)  
> Jack Gets a Happy Ending [2k, G]: [What will become of us now (at the end of time)?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29684646)  
> Eye Candy, Companion, Time Agent... Who is Ianto Jones? [48k, M]: [The Eight Lives of Ianto Jones](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29871159)


End file.
